A Dublin man accused of fatally stabbing another man has told a jury in the Central Criminal Court that the knife had fallen out of the victim's pocket.
Gary Gleeson (23), Lisryan, Granard, Co Longford denies the murder of Gavin Weldon (19) on July 5th, 2005.
Mr Gleeson told Martin Giblin SC, defending, that on that evening he and his brother were out walking the two pit bull dogs he and his fiancée owned.
As he was crossing the road near Molloy's off-licence in Ballyfermot, Dublin, he heard someone shout "The state of your pit bulls!" Thinking it was someone joking he shouted back "Yeah, I know" and continued crossing the road. He told Mr Giblin that Gavin Weldon then shouted "what do you mean, I know?" and started running towards him with a bottle raised over his head.
He said he started running but Mr Weldon was too fast and tried to trip him up as he caught up with him, kicking off one of Mr Gleeson's trainers. He said he let the dog go when Mr Weldon brought the bottle down on the back of his head.
As they were struggling he heard something fall. It was only when he looked down he realised it was a knife. Mr Gleeson said both he and Mr Weldon reached for the knife at the same time but he managed to get it first. "I knew I had to get it before he did." He told Mr Giblin that he had assumed Mr Weldon would fall back when he saw he had the knife but instead he lunged at him with the bottle raised and "that's when it happened".
"I put my left hand up to try and protect my head. I must have been forgetting the knife was in my hand. There was silence and he sort of backed away." He said he saw one of Mr Weldon's friends starting to run towards him and he ran away because he thought they were chasing him. "I only realised what had happened after, when I saw the blood on the knife and realised I had stabbed him."
Peter Gleeson, the accused man's father, told Mr Giblin that his son had changed completely since the incident. "He doesn't sleep. He can't even talk about what happened." He said the family had to move out of the Ballyfermot area after their lives were threatened and their house was being watched at night by people lying on the grass outside.
The trial continues this morning before Ms Justice Maureen Clark and the jury.