Stabbing victim would not walk away from a fight, says witness
Evening Herald
Finn Colclough (right) arrives at court with his father.
Friday October 24 2008
A Dublin teenager told gardai who arrived at the scene of an incident that he had stabbed another youth outside his house, the Central Criminal Court has heard.
Finn Colclough (18) told gardai who went into the kitchen of a house on Waterloo Road: "It was me."
Colclough, with an address at Waterloo Road, Dublin 4, denies murdering student Sean Nolan at Waterloo Road in the early hours of May 26, 2007.
Garda Aine Dalton told the court that she had been called to the scene of the reported stabbing. She saw someone lying on the ground surrounded by several other people. One of them told gardai that someone from the nearby house had stabbed the prone figure.
Handcuffed
Gardai got into the house and a long-haired, heavy-set young man wearing baggy black clothes came into the kitchen and told her: "It was me."
The garda cautioned Colclough, handcuffed him, and led him over to the kitchen table. He told her: "He hit me. He wouldn't get out of the garden. I'm only 17."
Eric Treacy, a friend of the dead man, said he could see no reason why Mr Colclough and his friends would have been afraid of him, Mr Nolan and another friend, Ciaran Wogan. But he agreed that Mr Nolan was not the kind of person to walk away from a fight.
The two groups met when Mr Nolan and his friends were looking for a girl called Sara, who Mr Nolan thought lived on Waterloo Road. Colclough gave directions and they parted on good terms. They had been on their way to Sara's house and wanted an opener for a bottle of wine they had bought earlier.
He remembered a long-haired young man coming out of the house waving a knife. Mr Nolan stepped forward and squared up to the figure.
Mr Treacy said that after a brief scuffle Mr Nolan fell back clutching his chest before falling to the floor. The trial continues on Tuesday.
- Abigail Rieley
