A 42-year-old English man was beaten with a stick and stabbed four times during a row over a car incident with another man, a murder trial jury at the Central Criminal Court heard yesterday.
Mr Michael O'Higgins SC, for the prosecution, was opening the trial of Mr John James Kelly, a 38-year-old Scottish man who denies the murder of Mr Chris Cybulla at The Commons, Curreeny, Kilcommon, Co Tipperary, on December 28th, 1999.
Mr O'Higgins told the court the deceased "was leading a nomadic type of existence as a New Age traveller". At the time of his death he shared a converted bus with his partner, Ms Julie Wood, in a campsite known as The Commons, where the accused also lived.
On the morning of his death, Mr Cybulla had driven to a nearby town to get milk with his son James. "En route they saw the accused man in a car with another individual and pleasantries were exchanged," Mr O'Higgins said. But on the return journey "there was a bit of overtaking . . . and an element of boy-racing competitiveness" during which the car mirrors collided.
The accused pulled over to inspect the damage and Mr Cybulla drove by, "either deliberately or accidentally" striking the driver's car door, which was open. Mr Cybulla continued driving back to the campsite, where the accused later confronted him.
"It is the prosecution's case that the accused man went and got a stick and a knife . . .went down the field and had a confrontation with the deceased," Mr O'Higgins said.
Following this verbal confrontation, the deceased was "stabbed four times into the left area of the chest and beaten simultaneously with a stick", he said. The injured man lost consciousness, and despite efforts to revive him at Nenagh General Hospital, he died a short time later.
Mr O'Higgins told the court the accused "conceded to gardaí that it was he who had inflicted the wounds" from which Mr Cybulla died. However, Mr Kelly made the case that he took a knife as a "precaution" when he went to confront Mr Cybulla as he was known to make knives.
Mr Kelly told gardaí that Mr Cybulla "made a movement to retrieve what he believed to be a knife". But Mr O'Higgins said that the deceased man was not carrying a knife. The trial continues before Mr Justice O'Higgins and a jury.