The man who denies murdering 61-year-old Michael Foley at his home in Macroom testified today that he did not carry out the murder, but that his then partner Linda O\u2019Flynn did it.<\/p>\n
Linda O\u2019Flynn, who is originally from the Hollyhill area of Cork city, is not a party to this trial.<\/p>\n
Daniel Hourigan said he and Linda O\u2019Flynn stayed in Michael Foley\u2019s overnight and that he woke up to noise that sounded like the place being broken up and stuff being moved around.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI went in the door of the kitchen. I see Linda. She is freaking out, her hands on her head, not kind of making sense at first. I said, \u2018Linda, what are you after doing?\u2019 \u201cMichael was on the floor. I saw the pool of blood,\u201d the accused man testified.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ray Boland, defence senior counsel, said the deceased was at that time basically in the position that was described to the jury as being the position he was found when dead. The defendant replied that this was correct.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said to Linda, \u2018ring an ambulance\u2019. Linda turned around and said, \u2018there is no ambulance being rang\u2019,\u201d the defendant said.<\/p>\n
He said he tried to lift Michael Foley from the floor to the couch but was unable to do so, so he put a cushion under his head. He said he checked for a pulse and there was a faint one. Mr Hourigan said Mr Foley\u2019s pants were down from his waist so he put a jacket over Mr Foley.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cLinda was saying, \u2018help me, help me\u2019. I was wiping the floor with rags \u2013 tea towels. Linda was packing stuff, putting stuff into black bags\u2026 I went down to the toilet. When I came back, Linda was gone. I followed her out the door,\u201d\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
he said.<\/p>\n
Describing how he felt on the bus, he said: \u201cTo be honest with you, a wave of emotions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asked how Linda was, he said: \u201cIt was like nothing had happened\u2026 she was talking to a girl at the back of the bus.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asked about his comment at Bandon courthouse to Detective Garda Fintan Coffey after his first court appearance in February 2024, \u201cFintan, it was not pre-meditated,\u201d Daniel Hourigan said today: \u201cThat was referring to Linda and what she done to Michael\u2026 I had no knowledge she was going to murder Michael.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for not ringing the ambulance \u2013 even later when he and Linda O\u2019Flynn got back to Cork \u2013 the accused man was asked how he felt about that and he replied: \u201cA bit cruel about it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jane Hyland, prosecution senior counsel, put various different versions that were described by Daniel Hourigan about the day in question, and estimated that the account he gave today in court was the seventh different version.<\/p>\n
Asked about things he said which he now accepted were untrue, he said that he said them \u201cto protect Linda.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said he was protecting her at that time because she had told him that she was pregnant with his child.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ms Hyland said he was not protecting Linda, he was protecting himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said he had no knowledge of \u201cthe knife used to kill Michael Foley\u201d being in a black plastic bag in the luggage compartment of the bus.<\/p>\n
He said he got a threatening phone call from an unidentified person that he (Daniel Hourigan) \u201cwould be next if I did not keep Linda O\u2019Flynn out of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
During his evidence today, Daniel Hourigan said: \u201cI had no part or role in Michael\u2019s murder.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Earlier today in the trial, Detective Sergeant Danielle Hegarty confirmed when asked by Mr Boland for the defence that Linda O\u2019Flynn was previously convicted \u2013 in an unrelated case \u2013 of going to the home of a man in Cork city with a hatchet in her bag and that she and a young man \u2013 not Daniel Hourigan \u2013 both used the hatchet to attack and injure the man in his home in January 2022.<\/p>\n
The prosecution case is that Michael Foley was murdered on February 1 2024 at his home at Annville, Barrett\u2019s Place in Macroom. 33-year-old Daniel Hourigan, who is originally from Farranree in Cork city, pleaded not guilty to his murder.<\/p>\n
Ms Hyland explained what was meant by the response to the murder charge made by the accused when he said:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n \u201cNot guilty of murder, but guilty of assisting an offender under Section 7 Subsection 2 of the Criminal Law Act 1997.\u201d\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
She said that in non-legal language, \u201cwhat that means is that he is saying to you that he helped another person when they committed an offence to prevent them being caught,\u201d but that he is not guilty of murder.<\/p>\n
The trial continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man who denies murdering 61-year-old Michael Foley at his home in Macroom testified today that he did…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2246,79,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-547905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-court","tag-cork-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547905","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=547905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}