A scene from a horror movie was how a Dunmanway man described the sight of blood \u2018firing\u2019 from his brother\u2019s arm after both he and his brother had been stabbed by another brother who is on trial by judge and jury claiming that he only acted in self-defence.<\/p>\n
John Brennan testified that he rushed out into the yard that evening to see blood pumping from Jerry\u2019s arm and that William then stabbed him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had Jerry done and dusted. At that moment he made a go for me. I felt it in my chest, like a light punch in my chest. I did not feel any pain. He could have come at us a thousand times, he could have gutted us like fish,\u201d John testified yesterday.<\/p>\n
32-year-old William Brennan, of Longbridge, Ballyhalwick, Dunmanway, is on trial at Cork Circuit Criminal Court where he denies charges of assault causing serious harm to John Brennan and Jeremiah Brennan (junior), also known as Jerry, at the family home.<\/p>\n
William Brennan also denies a charge of producing a knife in the course of a dispute, all charges related to the date of August 17 2024.<\/p>\n
John Brennan testified: \u201cJerry was in shock. I said he (William) is going to kill both of us\u2026 I said to Jerry, you have to get out of here.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father (Jerry senior) was at the entrance to the yard. We ran for our lives out of the place\u2026 I asked my father for the keys of the car. I thought he (Jerry) was going to die. There was blood everywhere. My father would not give me the key. He said, \u2018No, I\u2019m not giving you the key\u2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said that he and his brother Jerry owe their lives to the man who stopped his van and drove them away. He and the van driver, Tim Connolly, tied a belt around Jerry\u2019s arm to stop the heavy bleeding. It hurt Jerry but John said to him: \u201cLook, it might save you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said:<\/p>\n
\n \u00a0\u201cJerry said to me, \u2018Johnny, you are after being stabbed\u2019. I said: \u2018Yerra no, I don\u2019t think so.\u2019 I look down then and see a hole in the overalls.\u201d\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
Cross-examined by defence senior counsel Jane Hyland, John said he knew nothing about Willam\u2019s excavator being set on fire that morning in Dunmanway and denied driving with Jerry, and passing their father, flicking cigarette lighters as they passed.<\/p>\n
Ms Hyland put William\u2019s version of events to the witness: \u201cYou came after him with an implement \u2013 probably a rake \u2013 and you struck him on the head a number of times. He put his hand up to defend himself. Jerry came from his right and started beating him to the neck?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
John replied: \u201cIt sounds good from Willie\u2019s point of view, but that is not what happened.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ms Hyland continued: \u201cWhen he was attacked he remembered there was a knife in his pocket and he waved it around hitting both of you once?\u201d He replied: \u201cNo, that is not what happened\u2026 Are you supposed to be putting this down my throat or what.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the cross-examination about disputed past events between the parties, John said: \u201cMy father attempted to cut my fingers off 12 months previously with \u2026 an angle-grinder.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Returning to the moment when he said his father would not give him the keys of the car after he and Jerry had been stabbed, John said, through tears:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe father who reared me, who fed me, watered me, who did everything for me, he wouldn\u2019t give me the keys to save my brother.\u201d\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
Ms Hyland said to John: \u201cHe (William) acted in self-defence to defend himself from you and your brother. You made up things against your father to cast him in a bad light.\u201d He denied this.<\/p>\n
John said that after he and Jerry had been stabbed in the yard, \u201che (Willie) paused, almost as if he realised what he had done, almost as if (to say) \u2018Oh shit, what have I done?\u2019 Excuse the language, Judge.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The trial of William Brennan continues before Judge Helen Boyle and a jury of eight men and four women at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A scene from a horror movie was how a Dunmanway man described the sight of blood \u2018firing\u2019 from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[79,54,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-434946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-news","tag-courts","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}