Witness says he saw brother of murder accused put tablet in accused’s mouth

A witness has told a murder trial that he saw the accused man’s brother put a big, blue tablet into the accused’s mouth on the day before he is alleged to have murdered their father.

The jury also heard that the deceased had a defensive wound on his forearm and that the fatal stab wound to his neck had cut through his jugular.

They heard the evidence on Thursday during the Central Criminal Court trial of 33-year-old David Fortune.

Gerard (Gerry) Fortune was stabbed in the neck on August 19th, 2018, after watching the All-Ireland final in his home at Rutland Grove, Crumlin in Dublin.

David Fortune of Rutland Grove in Crumlin has pleaded not guilty to his murder at that address.

His sister, Laura Lambe, testified on Wednesday that the accused was hallucinating just before the stabbing, having earlier consumed a number of blue tablets.

Their brother, Gerard Lambe, admitted that he had given the accused the tablets.

Eddie Byrne testified on Thursday that he had seen Gerard Lambe physically putting a big, blue tablet into the accused man’s mouth on the day before the stabbing.

He told Michael Bowman SC, defending, that Mr Lambe had given it to him to calm him down.

“He said: ‘Here, try that’,” testified Mr Byrne, while gesturing with his outstretched hand.

“He didn’t ask for it,” he said of the accused, who he thought didn’t know what he was taking.

“Are you saying that Gerard physically put it in his mouth?” asked Mr Bowman.

“Yeah,” replied the witness.

He said that Mr Lambe had given the accused a different tablet about an hour before the stabbing. However, he hadn’t seen this.

“David’s mouth started foaming,” he said of the latter occasion.

“Mathew asked: ‘What did you give him?’,” the witness said, referring to another brother.

The witness said that Mr Lambe replied that he only gave him a white tablet.

Again, he didn’t think that the accused knew what he was taking, and agreed that the accused looked “completely out of control” afterwards.

He was re-examined by prosecutor Seán Gillane SC, who asked if his gesture in the witness box meant that Mr Lambe had handed him the tablet.

“No, put it in his mouth,” he replied.

The jury also heard from Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster, who carried out a post-mortem examination on Mr Fortune’s body.

She said she found a stab wound above his collarbone on the left side of his neck. It had cut through his carotid artery and jugular vein and tracked downward and to the right for 8cm.

She said that the incise wound she found to the back of his left forearm was consistent with a defence-type injury: “someone seeing a knife and raising their arm”.

She held up her arm and explained further how both injuries were inflicted.

“Somebody thrusting a knife downwards, someone raising an arm to defend himself and the knife continuing down into the neck,” she said.

She gave the cause of death as haemorrhage and shock due to a stab wound to the neck.

The trial continues.