A WOMAN on trial for murdering a taxi driver told gardaí she was trying to “get” his son with her car when the man who was killed jumped in front of her and she ended up “squashing him”.
In her Garda statements, Claire Nolan said she drove her car at 20mph into the driveway of Francis Duffy’s home at Well View Grove in Blanchardstown “just to scare him”, after he was seen trying to steal the radio from her new car.
Ms Doyle (23) said she could not keep her temper under control when she was drunk, and had “lost it” and wanted to hit Mr Duffy and wreck his house.
She had not meant to hurt or kill anyone, she said. “I went into the garden to get Fran [Francis Duffy] and the man got in the way . . . I didn’t mean to kill anyone . . . I hadn’t got it in my head that I was going to knock Fran down, I just wanted to fly in and scare him . . . It was an accident, I apologise,” she said.
Ms Nolan, Sheephill Green in Blanchardstown, has denied murdering Michael Duffy (66) in the driveway of his son’s home on January 26th, 2008, but has admitted his manslaughter.
Mr Duffy’s spine was broken, his spinal cord severed and part of his heart and liver crushed when he was struck by the car.
In his evidence to the court yesterday, Det Sgt Bernard Connaughton said Ms Nolan told him she could have taken 10 or 15 sleeping tablets on the day in question and she had spent the evening drinking wine with three friends in the house next door to Francis Duffy’s home.
She said she may have also taken cocaine, but was not sure, and kept getting blackouts about what happened on the night.
Ms Nolan said everyone ran outside when one of her friends said they saw Francis Duffy trying to steal the radio from her new Nissan Micra.
A row broke out, there was “screaming and shouting”, and Francis Duffy rang his father, Michael Duffy, shortly after 1am. Mr Duffy snr then drove to the scene.
Ms Nolan said she had no idea Mr Duffy snr was there when she got into her car and drove into the driveway of Francis Duffy’s house to “hit him” and scare him back into the house.
Det Sgt Connaughton, however, put it to her that she had been trying to knock Francis Duffy down. “Not his father, just Fran. He was after sticking a knife in my hand . . . that’s when I went mental,” she said.
She said she did remember the car hitting Michael Duffy. “I ended up squashing the man, I didn’t mean to squash him. I don’t know what I meant to do, I couldn’t stop . . . I couldn’t brake . . . and I ended up squashing the man. It was a freak accident, I apologise.”
She repeatedly denied to gardaí that she had set fire to the Nissan Micra, which was found burnt out a short time after the incident.
In his closing speech to the jury, Patrick Gageby SC, prosecuting, said it was “manifestly clear that this was not an accident”. He said Ms Nolan had “tons of motive” and had “acted from revenge”, and that there was elements of planning, premeditation and skilled driving in her actions.
Ms Nolan’s lawyer, Brendan Grehan, said that Ms Nolan was “totally out of control . . . unable to act in any reasonable, rational or logical way . . . and determined to do something that was grossly dangerous to herself.”
He said for her to have thought she could just tip Francis Duffy with the car and frighten him was “almost cartoon-like”. Mr Grehan said she had got a “rush of blood” to the head and acted in a way that was entirely irrational.
“She accepts that she’s killed and she’s taken a life, but she is not a murderer,” he said.
The jury of six men and six women is due to begin deliberations when the case resumes on Monday morning.