‘Single stab to the heart killed Cork Prison inmate’, 42
Brian Veale, aged 31, of Dominic St, Cork, pleaded not guilty, at the Central Criminal Court, to murdering Graham Johnson at Cork Prison, Rathmore Road, in Cork City, on May 16, 2015.
Yesterday, prosecution counsel Tim O’Leary, SC, called chief State pathologist Marie Cassidy to give evidence.
Dr Cassidy told the court that she carried out an autopsy on Mr Johnson’s body on May 17.
She examined the deceased in the mortuary and observed that his white t-shirt, which had “heavy blood-staining” on the front, had been removed.
The witness said Mr Johnson had a large stab wound to “the centre of the front of his chest”.
“It was 12cm below the top of the breast bone and extending onto the left-hand side of his chest,” she said. “The wound was 6cm wide and the wound track was downwards.”
The court heard that the blade had “penetrated the breast bone” and then “sliced across the start of the three ribs and continued around the sack of the heart”. The blade of the knife had gone straight through the heart, from front to back, said Dr Cassidy.
As a result of these injuries, the chest cavities were awash with blood, the court heard.
In conclusion, Dr Cassidy told the jury Mr Johnson’s death was due to a single stab wound to the front of his chest and haemorrhages to the heart and aorta.
The blade of the knife had “perforated the heart”, as well as “slicing” through the walls of the heart and aorta.
“It could have required a considerable degree of force to penetrate the sternum,” she said. Opening the prosecution case to a jury yesterday, Mr O’Leary told the court that both the accused and deceased were inmates at Cork Prison and they knew each other.
Counsel told the jury they would hear that the men were working in the kitchen of Cork Prison, when there was “some type of verbal altercation” at around 3pm on May 16.
Mr O’Leary said it would be alleged that the altercation arose “over a switching of a television channel” in the kitchen where the inmates were preparing food.
Counsel told the jury they will also hear that the altercation took place and then finished, but sometime after 5pm that same day, Mr Veale “came across a part of the kitchen with a knife” and stabbed the deceased in the chest area.
The trial continues before Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy and a jury of seven men and five women. It is expected to last five days.
