Court copy by Eoin Reynolds
The man accused of murdering Ashling Murphy has told his trial that he was a witness to her murder and that he was stabbed three times by the same person who attacked the 23-year-old school teacher.
Jozef Puska (33), with an address at Lynally Grove, Mucklagh, Co Offaly, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Murphy at Cappincur, Tullamore, Co Offaly on January 12th, 2022.
Mr Puska has taken the stand in his defence and is currently being cross-examined by prosecution counsel Anne-Marie Lawlor SC.
In his direct evidence, Mr Puska told his barrister Michael Bowman SC that he was cycling along the canal towpath between Digby Bridge and the N52 flyover when a man he did not know started shouting at him and pushed him off his bike.
“That was when I fell down,” he said. “He pushed me on the floor and he sat on me. He said something but I really didn’t understand what he was trying to tell me and then he pulled the knife and he started threatening me that he would hurt me, he would kill me. That was when he pulled the knife and stabbed me in the stomach.”
Mr Puska said the man stabbed him again in the stomach and “kept shouting something, I really don’t know what.”
After a few moments, he said, a lady appeared. “I didn’t know her, she said something to him and he started shouting at her. That man stabbed me again, that was the moment he stood up and he walked or went towards that woman. While he went towards the woman I stayed on the floor, lying down.”
Mr Puska said the man and woman “disappeared among the bushes” to the side of the towpath and Mr Puska stood up. He heard shouting and moved a few metres from where he saw that the man and woman were in the bushes.
He said: “When I came there I started shouting and what I saw was that he attacked that lady, she was attacked, then I shouted at him and he came towards me and I kept going backwards from him.” Mr Puska said he then saw the man running towards the N52 Bridge. Mr Puska described going to Ms Murphy, who was injured. He said he got off the towpath and went behind Ms Murphy because he was “scared that the man would come back and that was the moment that I fell into the bushes”.
He said he reached over to Ms Murphy and “once I saw her, she was injured, I was trying to help her. I tried to use her shawl or scarf to cover her injuries. I don’t know how long this was going on for.”
He recalled seeing another woman, Jenna Stack, who has previously given evidence in the trial. He said that Ms Stack “appeared in front of me” and said something that he did not understand. He said he “really wanted to stand up” and pulled his leg “really hard” and shouted. Ms Stack started running, he said, and that was when he noticed another woman also on the pavement who started running.
He said he was upset and in shock and he “stayed a little with the lady” but added: “Then I was really stressed and I left.” He said he jumped from the bushes into a field and pointed out on a photograph where he went. “While I was in the field I felt sick, I felt really unwell, and that was the moment, I basically went in that ditch. I did not continue any more, I stayed there. I stayed in that ditch for quite some time.”
Mr Puska said he must have lost consciousness but he remembers waking up hours later when it was dark and walking to a friend’s house in Tullamore.
Under cross-examination, Mr Puska agreed with Ms Lawlor that he is saying he was a “witness” to Ms Murphy’s murder.
His evidence is continuing this afternoon.
