A man was found guilty of manslaughter by a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday.
Derek Clarke (26), Moneymore, Drogheda, Co Louth, was remanded in custody by Judge Yvonne Murphy for sentence on July 27th.
He had pleaded not guilty to unlawfully killing Martin Reilly (57) on Island Street, Dublin, on July 12th, 2004. It was day seven of the trial.
Clarke had admitted to gardaí that he had punched Mr Reilly but said he had done so after he woke up to find Reilly fondling his girlfriend when the couple had been sleeping rough in a doorway under a duvet.
He said he had never met Mr Reilly before July 12th but had noticed him about 6.30pm walking up and down the quays watching his girlfriend while she was going to the toilet. Mr Reilly asked him if his girlfriend needed an ambulance but Clarke said that she did not need one and that he could look after her.
Clarke told gardaí that the next time he met Mr Reilly was when he woke up about 10pm on Island Street, having been asleep with his girlfriend in the doorway of the Simon Community building, to have a cigarette and found him lying beside his girlfriend under the covers.
He told gardaí that he punched Mr Reilly but said he struck him on the jaw and denied hitting him in the head.
Clarke told gardaí that Mr Reilly fell to the ground, but he later admitted striking him after he had got up off the ground the first time and had begun to walk away, because he thought he was going to come back.
He later admitted to kicking Mr Reilly in the head but denied using force. Clarke said he felt responsible for Mr Reilly's death but said he did not murder Mr Reilly but rather had seriously assaulted him.
Dr Marie Cassidy, the State Pathologist, concluded from her examination of Mr Reilly's body that the injuries he suffered from Clarke's assault were superficial and were not sufficient to have caused his death.
She added that Mr Reilly was likely to have had an increase of adrenaline due to the dispute which would have put pressure on his heart and led to his collapse and subsequent death.
Dr Cassidy told Seán Gillane BL, prosecuting, that Mr Reilly's heart tissue had significant scarring indicating chronic heart disease, which might have caused a heart attack at any time.
She also said toxicology tests showed Mr Reilly had considerable alcohol in his urine consistent with having consumed two-thirds of a bottle of spirits in one hour.
Dr Cassidy said in re-examination that an incident that occurred before Mr Reilly's collapse could have caused a rise in his adrenaline level, which peaks about 20 minutes after the incident, meaning that someone could walk away from an incident and still collapse and die later.