A woman accused of murdering her partner at their home in Kildare in 2001 allegedly told gardaí she did not mean to kill him and that she just poked him in the chest once.
Ms Helen Vaughan's statement to the gardaí on the July 24th, 2001, was read out to the jury yesterday by Mr Michael Counihan SC, prosecuting, at the Central Criminal Court. Ms Vaughan (40) has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Patrick Galvin (50) in St John's, Eyre Street, Newbridge, on July 23rd, 2001.
The court heard that Sgt Tom Flanagan was the first garda to arrive at the scene. "I saw a man on the kitchen floor, some of his clothes were bloody," Sgt Flanagan told the court. "I went into Helen Vaughan, she was in the sitting room and I spoke with her."
He told the jury that Ms Vaughan said that Mr Galvin was "out drinking all day and came home very drunk". She added: "I started to cut up some sausages and he was cribbing me that he was getting only sausages."
Ms Vaughan was arrested and spent the night in custody, "rocking and crying" for most of the night, the court heard.
Det Garda James Crudden told the jury that, the next morning, Ms Vaughan told him that she was going to cook up a fry for Mr Galvin the night before. Ms Vaughan said how Mr Galvin noticed she had a knife in her hand and taunted her to attack him. "I told him not to annoy me and put it in the sink. Then I said, 'here do you want the knife?'," before telling gardaí she stuck the knife into his chest.
"I didn't realise it would go in very far, I started to scream," she said. Ms Vaughan said she put the knife away because she did not want "him to get up and take the knife and use it on me".
She went up to the bar he had been drinking in to find some of his friends because she thought "they could take him to hospital and he would sober up".
The trial continues today.