A Dublin man stabbed his next-door neighbour on a stairway during Christmas week four years ago and then walked back to his own flat, it was alleged in court yesterday.
Mr Derek Gibbons (36) has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Gerard Doyle on December 21st, 1996. Both lived in Markievicz House, Townsend Street, Dublin. Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC said the stabbing took place between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. and was witnessed by a number of young people playing in the flats.
Mr Doyle was pronounced dead in the Meath Hospital around an hour and a half after the stabbing. The State pathologist Dr John Harbison found he died from blood loss due to a single stab wound to the abdomen.
Mr Doyle's girlfriend, Ms Sharon Rowe, told the court that "a couple of minutes after ten past eight", a young neighbour knocked on her door and when she went down to the balcony below she found Mr Doyle, whose nickname was "Redser", lying on the landing.
Leigh Reid, a schoolboy living in Markievicz House, said that when he was going back up to a flat on the top floor to get his gloves, he saw "Redser falling back" and "a man, Spinko, was walking back up the stairs". "Spinko" is Mr Gibbons's nickname. Leigh Reid said he saw Spinko "had the knife and he was stroking Redser with it".
Leigh Reid agreed with defence counsel Mr Hugh Harnett SC that the person he saw "stroking" Mr Doyle had "black spiky hair, sticking up, not brown flat hair". He also agreed he did not see the assailant's face. The trial continues in the Central Criminal Court before Mr Justice Carney.