A Dublin civil servant accused of murdering her husband told the Central Criminal Court yesterday that he first struck her violently two weeks before their wedding.
Ms Dolores O'Neill (50), has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Declan O'Neill (46), on or about July 22nd, 2002, at their home in Coolamber Park, Knocklyon, Dublin.
On the fourth day of the trial yesterday, she told the court he also assaulted her on their honeymoon: "I suppose it was an excuse to be drinking during the day. He had me over the balcony with his hand around my throat." By the end of the marriage her husband would strike out for "the least thing". He was also violent with her older son, she said, almost breaking his arm when he stepped in to protect his mother.
Ms O'Neill returned to work after having her first son and a relative provided childcare. Then, she told the court, her husband asked her to quit and so she did. "He loved the idea of coming in and having his meals on the table and the fire lit."
One income was not enough and money was a problem throughout the marriage. She told Mr Felix McEnroy SC, defending, that there was tension over the mortgage and there were times when the electricity and phone had been cut off.
Ms O'Neill described how the family's money problems resulted from her husband's drinking. "He'd go off on a Thursday when he got paid and we wouldn't see him until Saturday."
Ms O'Neill recounted the final weeks and hours of her husband's life. She explained that he had become so violent, she had begun to make up stories to explain her injuries.
Mr O'Neill moved out of the family home a few months before he died, moving in with a woman he described as a "dominatrix". The accused said getting money to run the home was difficult at that time, and she would phone her husband on a Wednesday to organise a meeting the following day, his payday.
Mr O'Neill moved back into Coolamber Park on June 24th, 2002, and suggested that he, his wife, and younger son spend a weekend in Cork. Ms O'Neill agreed. She told the court: "I just wanted to try one last time to make it as a family."
That night in the hotel she woke in the early hours with her husband kissing her. "I kissed him back and on the shoulder," she said: "He jumped up and called me a 'f***ing bitch, trying to leave your mark on me'." When she asked what was going on, he struck her and she spent the rest of the night in the bathroom, cooling her face with a flannel, she said. The family returned to Dublin, with both mother and son travelling in the back seat. There was no conversation.
The next evening, the accused said she divided the food that was left in the house between her husband and sons, taking Declan O'Neill's to him in his room.
Later, her sons asked her for a lift to the cinema, and having no petrol in her own car, she approached her husband to borrow his. "Jesus Christ. You're in on top of me again" is the response she said she received.
That night, she told the court, while the boys were still at the cinema, she went into his room to get some laundry. He jumped up and started shouting at her and calling her a "f****ing bitch". She said he pushed her so the arch of her back was against a table and then, clasping his hand around her throat, forced her head back against the wall behind it. She said she couldn't control her head as he banged it against the wall and she could feel her throat closing in.
She managed to push him off, and as he landed on the bed she lost her balance. She said: "I just saw the hammer and picked it up . . . Jesus, oh God, Jesus."
Ms O'Neill told the court she did not remember much about what happened after that, and when cross-examined by Mr Roger Sweetman SC, prosecuting, said she could not remember anything about the knife, later found at the scene. However, she did not deny using it.