Two Dublin men have gone on trial at the Central Criminal Court charged with murdering a 27-year-old ‘model worker’ on his way to work in north Dublin.
Polish man Lukasz Rzeszutko was found with ‘catastrophic and un-survivable’ head injuries outside his workplace in Coolock on October 2nd, 2010.
Martin Morgan (20) of Tonlegee Road, Raheny; and Stephen Byrne (18) of St Donagh’s Road, Donaghmede have pleaded not guilty to his murder.
Aileen Donnelly SC, prosecuting, told the jury that the victim, regarded as a model employee by his boss, was on his way to work when the two accused and another man took part in a ‘vicious and devastating attack’ on him.
“Mr Rzeszutko was overpowered,” she said.
She said Mr Rzeszutko suffered catastrophic injuries to his head and that his brain was severely damaged. His injuries were un-survivable and he died in hospital on October 4th, 2010.
“It’s the prosecution’s case that these two men are guilty of the murder,” she said. “They were engaged in a joint enterprise to assault Mr Rzeszutko, in which they shared an intent to kill or cause serious injury to him.”
Ms Donnelly said the victim had worked in Kish Fish in the Newtown Industrial Estate for two years. His two brothers also worked there but he worked nights and used to walk to work alone.
One of the victim’s colleagues, Michel Kamola, testified that he was working in Kish Fish in the early hours of October 2nd that year.
He said that he heard a group of people laughing and shouting outside for about three minutes between 3am and 4am that morning. He thought they were just passing by.
Mr Kamola said he left work just before 4.30am and saw a person lying in the middle of the junction opposite Kish Fish. He stopped and got out of his car, initially thinking that the man was dead.
Although he knew Mr Rzeszutko, he did not recognise the man on the ground.
“He had a lot of blood on his nose and mouth,” he explained.
He then heard what he thought was snoring and thought that the man on the ground was drunk and sleeping. He rang an ambulance.
He said he was on the phone to the emergency services when his employer, Tadhg O’Meara, came along. Mr O’Meara, who did not recognise his ‘model worker’ either, gave directions to the ambulance before proceeding to work.
Mr Kamola took a photograph of the injured man on his phone and a copy was shown to the jury.
Fire fighter Aaron Penrose testified that the victim was unresponsive from the time the emergency services arrived that morning until he was brought into the resuscitation room in Beaumont Hospital. He assessed his coma scale as being the lowest possible and called for back-up.
Advanced paramedic Clinton Jacobs placed the victim on a saline drip when he arrived, before putting him onto a spinal board. He said that as he moved Mr Rzeszutko into the ambulance, he noticed grey/white matter coming from his face.
The trial before Mr Justice Barry White and a jury of seven women and five men is expected to last three weeks.