TWO BROTHERS stabbed a man to death in front of his wife and oldest child, a court was told yesterday.
Christopher “Christy” Cawley (33), a father of six, died of multiple stab wounds following an assault at a stairwell of a block of flats at Tyrone Place, Inchicore, Dublin, on October 29th, 2006.
Warren Dumbrell (34) and Jeffrey Dumbrell (28), both of Emmet Road, Inchicore, have pleaded not guilty to the murder.
Warren Dumbrell has also pleaded not guilty to threatening to kill Mr Cawley’s wife, Janet.
Outlining the case for the prosecution at a Central Criminal Court sitting in Cloverhill, Paul Burns SC said on the day he died Mr Cawley left home at 7.30pm and went to a patch of waste ground nearby.
At 8pm he was seen running home being pursued by two men. It was the prosecution’s case the two men in question were Warren and Jeffrey Dumbrell. Mr Cawley was then stabbed six times.
Mrs Cawley told the jury her husband had gone out to collect his five-year-old son Lorcan who was playing outside. His eldest daughter, Mairead, was also outside. She came out on to the balcony of their family home when she heard Mairead screaming.
She witnessed the Dumbrell brothers, who she had known for years, chasing her husband. He tripped in front of the stairwell, where he was set upon by the two men.
Jeffrey Dumbrell had a wooden object that looked like a baseball bat or a hurley, while Warren Dumbrell had a knife. She described the knife as being long and thick. She threw a toy car, belonging to one of her children, over the balcony which hit Jeffrey Dumbrell.
When the pair had finished assaulting her husband, Warren Dumbrell brandished a knife at her, and shouted: “If you don’t shut up, you’ll be next.”
She recalled the brothers did not run away after the assault, but walked “briskly”. When she reached her husband he was just “staring into space”.
Mrs Cawley admitted she was aware her husband had had an altercation with Warren Dumbrell and had expected trouble, but said she was surprised at the events of the night.
Martin Giblin SC, counsel for Warren Dumbrell, suggested it was her husband who had carried the knife that night. Mrs Cawley said she was not aware of that.
He put it to her that Warren Dumbrell only carried a hurley and not a knife.
Mrs Cawley denied hearing Warren Dumbrell say: “He’s had enough.”
She also denied a suggestion that Tommy Dumbrell, a brother of Warren and Jeffrey, had threatened her husband as he got off a bus on the evening he died. Her husband allegedly replied “any time, any place”, to which Tommy Dumbrell was reported to have responded: “If it’s a fight you want, 8 o’clock tonight in the square.”
She also denied a conversation that allegedly took place between a neighbour, James Devlin, and her husband on the Thursday before he was stabbed. In that conversation, Mr Cawley said he had pulled a knife on Tommy Drumbell and threatened to “cut him up”, according to Brendan Nix SC, counsel for Jeffrey Dumbrell.
The case continues.