A jury has begun considering their verdict in the trial of a 28-year-old man accused of murdering a father-of-five who was shot dead in the hallway of his mother’s home.
Mr Justice Tony Hunt on Friday concluded his charge to the 12 jurors in the Central Criminal Court trial of Cailean Crawford who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Thomas McCarthy on July 27th, 2020 at Croftwood Park, Ballyfermot, Dublin 10.
The judge told the panel they must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of the prosecution narrative in order to convict. He said if they are satisfied the defence narrative is reasonably possible then they must acquit Mr Crawford.
Mr Justice Hunt told the jury they must be unanimous in their verdict.
During the trial, the accused took the stand and told the jury that he was being “blamed” as the “centre point” of a murder he didn’t commit after he loaned a GoVan he had hired on the morning of the killing to another man.
The prosecution alleges that the GoVan and a Sim card for a phone attributed to the accused were used in connection with the murder.
Mr Crawford said he assumed the other man “needed the van to collect drugs”.
Mr Crawford said the man he handed the van over to was a "mate" of this man who had “bones sticking out of his face”.
In his closing address, Bernard Condon SC for the Director of Public Prosecutions said the jury had been presented with “a tissue of lies”.
He said Mr Crawford’s evidence was “full of untruths and equivocations and dishonesty” and described the accused’s claim that the movements of his van was due to drug dealing as “absurd”.
He also described as nonsense the accused’s references to “a boney-faced man” to whom he gave his phone and van, adding that it was “preposterous” that someone could have then gone and parked the van outside the accused’s grandmother’s house.
In his closing speech, Mark Lynham SC, for Mr Crawford, told the jury that the most important thing in this case is the presumption of innocence, adding that what they had heard from Mr Condon was “the presumption of guilt”.
Counsel reminded the panel that an eyewitness had given a description of the person suspected of being the killer as being six-foot tall, “not young, possibly late 30s, very skinny” and “junkie-looking”, with a black tooth or tooth missing. He said that the accused did not match this description.
Mr Lynham acknowledged the accused was involved in criminality but told the jury that “being a criminal doesn’t mean you’re a murderer”.
Completing his charge to the jury on Friday, Mr Justice Tony Hunt told the panel of six men and six women that the prosecution case depends “fairly and squarely” on the involvement of the GoVan and the phone from 9am up to and until shortly after the killing. He said the phone didn’t go silent until about eight minutes later.
He told the jury that if they do not believe the GoVan and the phone “are part of the picture here” then they must acquit.
However, he said if they accept that the GoVan and the SIM card with the number attributed to Mr Crawford were in use after 9am and were in use connected with the murder then the obvious question was who was in possession of the van and the phone.
“That’s what this case boils down to,” he said. “Who had the van and who had the phone after about five past nine. Mr Crawford tells you: ‘It wasn’t me, I was asked to go to Palmerstown Drive to give the phone and the van to the man and it would be taken away’.
He told the jury they must consider: “Is that the truth or is it even reasonably possible. If it’s reasonably possible then you must acquit him because there’s a reasonable doubt in the prosecution case.”
He said, on Mr Crawford’s account, the GoVan was not back in his possession until about 11.50am.
“You have to decide if it’s a shocking stroke of bad luck or if, as the prosecution say, there is no handover, he continues to be in possession of the phone, he continues to be in possession of the van after 9am,” said Mr Justice Hunt.
Mr Justice Hunt told the 12 jurors they must “proceed with care” and “be aware of possible infirmities”.
The jury retired to begin their deliberations just after 12.30pm on Friday and will return on Monday.
