A Galway woman has told a murder trial jury that she loved the man she killed and she did not mean to do it. She broke down on her second day in the witness box. The jury was told she had called gardai to her house 20 to 30 times during her relationship with Patrick Sammon (42), but she did not call them the night she stabbed him. He would have beaten her if she tried, she said.
Ms Kathleen Bell (36), who admits the manslaughter of her boyfriend and sister's former husband at her house in Camilaun Park, Newcastle, Galway, on June 20th, 1997, was being cross-examined on the fifth day of her trial in the Central Criminal Court. She has pleaded not guilty to murder.
Ms Bell told Mr Marcus Daly SC, prosecuting, that she had to call the gardai to her house so many times she could not remember. It could have been "around 20 or 30 times". This happened "when Pat wouldn't get out for me or had me beat", she said.
At other times when she tried to phone them, he would stop her. A number of times he hit her on the head with the phone. She agreed that the gardai always came when she called them. She told the court she threw Mr Sammon out of her house on both June 18th and 19th. She did not have to call the gardai to get him to leave on those occasions.
"When he wouldn't be drinking you wouldn't need the guards," she said. She agreed with Mr Daly that she had not called them when he refused to go early on June 20th. "If I had went on the phone to the gardai, he'd kick the hell out of me." It never entered her head to phone the gardai, Ms Bell said, "things were happening so fast". It also never entered her head to run out in the street to alert neighbours. "The neighbours would not get involved," she said, adding that this was the case on an earlier occasion when Pat was kicking her outside.
She agreed she had threatened him before. They rowed over "something stupid", when she asked him to pay the rent and she discovered he had given her an old rent receipt. On that occasion, she also said "get out Pat, or I'll fecking kill you", but she didn't mean anything by that, she said. She took out the knife on the night she killed him "only to frighten him". "There was nothing going through my head to do any thing to Pat. There was no way I meant anything with that knife, no way." She also did not remember "getting him with the knife".
Asked what she meant when she said she had "freaked", she replied: "It was just like I lost my head and everything went out of control." Was she concerned about her safety, Mr Daly asked. "Nothing had entered my head then," she said. "It wasn't in my head to protect myself, my head just went."
It happened when Pat went to hit her, she said. She denied that she was in charge of events at all times and said she had "no intention" of doing anything with the knife. Mr Daly put it to her that as they argued in the sitting room, "there was no violence" at that stage. "The kind that Pat was, it would have led to violence," she replied.
When she was read the contents of statements she made to gardai in which she told them she said to Pat Sammon that if he did not leave, she would kill him, she broke down. She said she loved Mr Sammon and every day she thought of him and no one knew what she was going through.
Ms Bell did not agree that she was angry with Mr Sammon for planning to split up the children of his late wife, her sister Mary. This "upset" and "annoyed" her, but she was not angry about it.
Mr Daly said that because of her own background of being separated from her brothers, this was "the real reason" for the row that night. "No, he was on about my sister first, and then he started on the kids," Ms Bell said. Mr Daly said she did not lose control. "I did, your honour, definitely, I just lost the head," she replied. "There was no way I wanted to get Pat with that knife, no way." Mr Daly suggested her use of the knife was "over the top" and unnecessary. Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, defending, objected that it was not a legitimate question but was a matter for the jury to decide. After legal argument, Ms Justice McGuinness said she would allow Mr Daly to ask Ms Bell what she thought of her reaction that night.
When he put it to Ms Bell that her reaction and conduct were "entirely excessive and over the top", she replied: "I know now I shouldn't have done it and I did not meant it."
The case continues tomorrow.