A 49-year-old man has been found not guilty of the manslaughter of a 40-year-old man following an incident when they were both using a soup kitchen on the street in Cork city.
Adrian Henry of Seminary Road, Blackpool in Cork had pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of James Duncan at Patrick Street in the city on September 12th, 2019.
Mr Duncan was from Dunmore Gardens in Knocknaheeny on the north side of the city.
A jury of eight men and four women took just over an hour at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on Tuesday morning to return a unanimous verdict of not guilty.
Presiding judge Helen Boyle thanked the jurors for the "diligence" with which they performed their duties.
During the trial, the defence had said a guilty verdict would be a “major miscarriage of justice”.
The pathologist in the case, Dr Ben Ong, who carried out the postmortem on Mr Duncan, agreed with the defence that there were no bruises or external signs of assault on the body of the deceased.
He also agreed with the defence that due to underlying conditions, Mr Duncan would have been a bad candidate for any fall.
Coma
The trial heard that doctors at the Mercy University Hospital in Cork did not observe any external head injury. However, on admission, Mr Duncan was found to be at the deepest level of coma.
Dr Ong indicated Mr Duncan had been admitted to hospital a month earlier for a head injury and intracranial bleed but was discharged after observation.
The prosecution counsel at the trial, Ray Boland SC, said Mr Duncan was assaulted in a “sudden, violent and dangerous” manner.
“There was precious little preamble, and it happened very quickly.
"Violent — a witness said she saw he was pushed forcefully to the ground and dragged on the road in the face of oncoming traffic and dropped. Being dragged in to traffic was the dangerous aspect. My view is that he suffered this subdural haematoma in the course of the assault."
The jurors had heard the voice of the deceased as part of the evidence at the trial, with a 999 call which Mr Duncan played in court. The deceased made the call at 9.15pm on September 12th, 2019, telling the operator he had been attacked.
“I am after being attacked. He (the attacker) is still here. He beat the f**k out of me. I need help. No, I don’t need an ambulance, but I need help. Thank you,” Mr Duncan said during the call.
