A man has gone on trial at the Central Criminal Court accused of murdering his former girlfriend’s baby at their home in Co. Wexford seven years ago.
Philip Doyle (34) of Tinakilly, Aughrim, Co. Wicklow has pleaded not guilty to murdering Ross Murphy at at house in Creagh Desmesne, Gorey on April 5th, 2005.
The jury was told that the cause of death of the three-and-a-half-month-old was head trauma but that the prosecution cannot prove the mechanism by which it was caused.
Opening the trial Tom O’Connell SC prosecuting told the court it was the State’s case that the trauma that directly caused death was inflicted two days before the infant died at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin on April 5th, 2005. He said the child also developed pneumonia in hospital, hastening his death.
Mr O’Connell told the jury the death was not accidental and that they would hear evidence the injuries are consistent with shaken baby syndrome.
He said there were four points of bruising to the head and it was the prosecution’s case that it was not consistent with one incident of trauma.
Mr O’Connell said State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy, who conducted a post mortem on April 6th, 2005 concluded that Ross Murphy died following head trauma and would not have recovered.
He also said the pathologist found other injuries to the body and that such damage was "not expected to occur in a not yet mobile child".
The court heard that he and the baby’s mother Leona Murphy was seven-and-a-half months pregnant when she started going out with Mr Doyle.
Mr O’Connell told the jury after the baby was born in December 2004, the pair took up living together at Creagh Desmense in mid-January 2005.
Mr Doyle asked Ms Murphy to be named as the father on the baby’s birth certificate but she refused to do so, the court was told.
Mr O'Connell said Ross Murphy was “for all intents and purposes a normal, healthy child,” and that a number of witnesses would give evidence in relation to that.
The prosecution says Mr Doyle gave different accounts about what happened to the baby, that he lied to medics about what happened before he became ill and that the accused did not say he was in the house on his own with the infant at the time of the incident.
The court was told there was a previous incident on the evening of March 31st 2005 where Mr Doyle took the baby upstairs and put him in his cot. He went up three times and then called Ms Murphy to come upstairs and when she picked him up and he was lifeless in her arms but was revived with cold water.
The local doctor was contacted who saw the baby later that night and suggested that he be taken to Wexford General Hospital. The infant remained for four days until being discharged on the afternoon of April 3rd, 2005.
At 6pm on the evening the baby returned returned home from hospital Ms Murphy went out for a DVD when a second incident happened the court was told.
Mr O’Connell said that in the following half hour, events lead to the subsequent death of the baby and that a series of accounts were given by Mr Doyle. Mr O’Connell said no account other that the injuries were self-inflicted was given by the accused.
Three weeks later he said Mr Doyle changed his story saying what occurred was accidental. He told gardai that he picked up the child and tripped on a mat and tried to turn sideways as he fell to save the baby.
Originally Mr Doyle denied he was on his own with the child but in a sixth garda interview Mr Doyle gave a new version of events when presented with mobile phone evidence of Ms Murphy being out of the house at the time, the court heard.
The trial which is expected to last up to five weeks continues before a jury of seven men and five women presided over by Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy.