A Judge has withdrawn a murder charge against a 19-year-old Dublin man who admitted kicking the victim on the ground during a fight in Basin Street flats in the capital in 1997.
A charge of manslaughter is set to go before the jury in the Central Criminal Court today in the trial of Mr Derek Wade, Church Avenue South, Rialto, who was originally charged with the murder of Mr William Cahill (28), at Mary Aikenhead House, James's Street, Dublin, between June 7th, 1997, and June 11th, 1997.
Mr Cahill died in hospital three days after a late-night fight between him and two men, one of whom was Mr Wade. When the prosecution case closed yesterday, Mr Anthony Sammon SC, defending, applied to Mr Justice Smith for the murder charge to be withdrawn. Mr Justice Smith told the jury that, arising out of the application, he was withdrawing the charge of murder. He was quite satisfied there was no intention to kill or cause serious bodily harm.
He pointed out that at the time of the attack Mr Wade was wearing soft shoes and the State Pathologist found Mr Cahill's skull had not been fractured.