Witness tells Carrigaline murder trial that he found man at scene to be 'shy, sheepish and calm'

A WITNESS who was first to see a man lying unconscious on a road in Carrigaline with two other man standing nearby thought the man who spoke to him would have been frantic but found it strange that he was “shy, sheepish and calm”.

That was the observation of a witness who testified at a murder trial before Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford and a jury of six women and six men at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork today.

21-year-old Ricardo Hoey of 7 Ardcarrig, Carrigaline, County Cork, and 19-year-old Jordan Deasy of 41 Ravensdale, Heron's Wood, both pleaded not guilty to the single charge against them that on December 28 2022 at Glenwood estate, Carrigaline, County Cork, they did murder 29-year-old Matt O’Neill, contrary to common law.

Witness John McGovern was walking from his home at Weston View, Carrigaline, towards the bus stop by the Toyota garage.

“As I approached Glenwood Dale I noticed a car parked at the Glenwood Grove cul de sac. It was a car with a modified exhaust, a grey Astra, and the font on the registration was not the normal one. The car pulled away.

“In the number of minutes it took to where I saw the incident the car was stopped in the middle of the road. The car doors were open as far as they could. The taller man was on the driver’s side. The shorter man was on the passenger side. A third man was on the ground. I wasn’t sure what I was after coming across.

“I asked, ‘Lads, what is after going on here?’ I approached the man on the ground who I noticed was unconscious. He was on the passenger side. Only the taller man replied. He said, ‘He wouldn’t get out of the way’. I presumed he meant the man on the ground would not get out of the way of the car.’ 

“I noticed the evenness and calm of the man who answered. I marked it as strange. I would have expected them to be frantic. He (the taller man on driver’s side) was understated, strangely together, the way he answered me.

“I told them I was going to call the gardaí and the emergency services, their demeanour changed – it was dawning on them how the man came to be on the ground and they left at that stage,” Mr McGovern said.

CALL TO AMBULANCE SERVICE

The witness said that over the phone to the ambulance service they told him how to care for the man on the ground. He noticed cuts to his left temple, right ear and right hand, and saw a broken bottle close by.

Asked again by Jane Hyland prosecution senior counsel about the initial response of the taller man who spoke to him initially, Mr McGovern said, 

“It seemed very strange to me – the response – how even it was. I would have expected wringing hands, being a bit frantic, that was not the way it was. The driver seemed sheepish, shy.” 

He said the driver’s demeanour changed when he (the witness) said he was calling gardaí. He said the passenger did not talk at any stage.

Dr Eoin Sheehan, an orthopaedic consultant from Tullamore General Hospital was visiting his parents with his wife and children and was on his way to Carrigaline Court Hotel when he saw the injured man on the ground with Mr McGovern tending to him.

Dr Sheehan described the man on the ground as unconscious lying on his back with his arms and legs splayed. He said it was wet and dark at the time and there was blood visible on his teeth and from the back of his head and there was blood from a cut to one or two fingers. He said the unconscious man’s clothing was normal and added, “he was not unkempt or anything".

“My initial thoughts were he could have been knocked down or he could have fallen over or he could have been assaulted, pushed over and fallen. It was very hard to say in the heat of the moment in the middle of the road.

“He was pretty critically injured. On the Glasgow Coma Scale he was at three (the most critical level on the scale measuring consciousness and its impairment). His basic vitals were normal. He was breathing and his heart was beating. Heart and lungs were functioning but he had a significantly bad head injury.” 

In the hour or so Dr Sheehan was present with him – before and after the arrival of ambulance personnel – brain swelling resulted in an already bad situation starting to deteriorate.

The doctor was cross-examined by Tom Creed and Brendan Grehan senior counsel for Mr Hoey and Mr Deasy respectively. He agreed that the head injury could have resulted from the deceased man’s head hitting the ground.