A father of five has been cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter for stabbing a man to death after he was attacked while walking home from a pub late at night.
The 10-person jury at the Central Criminal Court hearing the trial of Andrew Lacey took just over three hours to reach their unanimous verdict following a three-week trial.
Lacey had denied murdering Derek Reddin and told his trial that the deceased assaulted him with a metal baseball bat. The court heard the assault arose out of an ongoing feud between associates of both the accused and the deceased.
Members of Mr Reddin's family wept when the verdict was revealed.
Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring refused to extend Lacey's bail and remanded him in custody ahead of a sentencing hearing next Thursday when members of Mr Reddin's family will have an opportunity to make statements to the court.
Andrew Lacey (35), of Riverside, Loughlinstown, Co Dublin, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Reddin (31) at Loughlinstown Drive on a date unknown between October 14th and October 15th, 2019, both dates inclusive.
David Howard told the trial that he brought his cousin, Mr Reddin, to Loughlinstown that night because Mr Reddin was to have a "straightener" or a "boxing match" with Lacey.
Lacey was seen on CCTV leaving the Lough Inn pub with his friend, Mark Roe, at about 11.40pm and going to a nearby takeaway while Mr Howard and Mr Reddin waited on Loughlinstown Drive.
Lacey and Mr Roe were walking along Loughlinstown Drive with their food when they encountered Mr Reddin and Mr Howard.
Attack
Lacey told the trial that Mr Reddin ran across the road and attacked him with a metal baseball bat leading to a scuffle in which Mr Reddin dropped the bat as they both fell to the ground.
Lacey said he got up and took a knife from his pocket hoping to "repel" Mr Reddin or make him run away. However, he said Mr Reddin retrieved the bat and lunged at him again. Lacey said they scuffled and again fell to the ground, but he did not realise he had stabbed Mr Reddin.
He said the knife was in his pocket because he used it in his work as a general operative at a nearby park and had inadvertently left home with it that evening.
David Howard denied that Mr Reddin had a baseball bat and told the jury that Lacey produced the knife as soon as he saw Mr Reddin from across the road. He said he saw Lacey waving the knife while shouting "get it on" before the scuffle began.
Mr Howard said he saw Mr Reddin fall to the ground before Lacey got on top of him. He said: "He was straddling him and digging the knife into him. He had his two legs over his body, basically sitting on him."
Defence counsel Dominic McGinn SC said Mr Howard had given multiple versions of what happened, initially telling gardaí on the night that he was out walking with Mr Reddin when they "came across two lads" they did not know and a fight started.
Three days later, Mr Howard told gardaí that Mr Reddin was there for a "boxing match" with Lacey and that he saw Mr Reddin "pulling some kind of baton out of his trouser leg" when Lacey produced the knife.
In his evidence before the jury, Mr Howard denied that Mr Reddin had a baseball bat during the fight with Lacey.
Mr McGinn pointed to the evidence of nearby residents, one of whom saw something being struck on the ground with a baseball bat and both of whom heard something metallic hitting or scraping another object or rolling on the ground.
Counsel described the prosecution's suggestion that there was no baseball bat as "ludicrous". He said it is reasonably possible that Mr Howard told lies in his evidence and, if he did, the prosecution case "falls apart".
Gardaí searched the area but never found a baseball bat.
Phone call
Following the stabbing, Mr Reddin collapsed and a pathologist would tell the trial that he died from a stab wound that penetrated his lung and heart.
Mobile phone evidence showed that immediately after the stabbing, Lacey phoned his brother Kevin and another man.
Roisin Lacey SC, for the prosecution, said both Kevin Lacey and the other man were involved in the feud and she put it to Lacey that he phoned them to tell them he had killed Mr Reddin.
Mr Lacey said he phoned them because he wanted them to contact his wife either by calling to her house or through Instagram because her phone number was not working at that time.
Lacey said he and his friend took photographs at the scene because Lacey was worried that Mr Howard was trying to get Mr Reddin into his car to get away.
He said he wanted to preserve the evidence that he had been attacked and denied that he filmed and photographed the scene to show others what he had done to Mr Reddin. At that time, he said, he did not know Mr Reddin had been fatally wounded.
He accepted that he lied to emergency services and continued to lie when he told a garda at the scene that one of his attackers had a knife and both had bats.
He said he told gardaí the truth the following day and said his version of what happened is the truth.
He denied that he deliberately "dug" the knife into Mr Reddin and insisted that he "didn't mean to cause anyone any harm on that night".
Ms Justice Ring told the jury that for a finding of murder the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Andrew Lacey intended to kill or to cause serious harm when he stabbed Mr Reddin. However, she said that if you kill somebody but are acting in reasonable self-defence, that killing is not unlawful and the person would be guilty of no offence.
A manslaughter verdict would arise, she said, if Lacey used more force than was reasonably necessary but honestly believed at the time that the force he was using was necessary to defend himself.
The jury could also reach a manslaughter verdict if they found that Lacey was so intoxicated that he was unable to form an intent.
The jury heard that Lacey had been drinking cider for about five hours before the stabbing.
