A CENTRAL CRIMINAL Court jury has failed to reach a verdict in the murder trial of a 20-year-old man, who said he acted in self defence and was protecting his home when a drunk fisherman entered as a trespasser.

Dean Kerrie said that after Jack Power had smashed the front window of his home, kicked in the door and attacked his family, the deceased received a knife wound to the chest when he “lost his footing and fell onto the knife”.

The accused had asked for a complete acquittal.

“I asked him to leave my house and to stop what he was doing. He started to kick me and I tried to move out of the way.

“I was trying to get out of his way, he ended up stabbed,” Kerrie, who was 17 at the time of the incident, told the jury.

The prosecution’s case was that Kerrie was not acting in self defence, that he knew he was using excessive force when he “deliberately” stabbed 25-year-old Mr Power in the chest and there was nothing accidental about the incident. 

However, after approximately six hours and 53 minutes of deliberations the jury returned today unable to reach a verdict. 

The seven men and four women of the jury began considering their verdict on Tuesday afternoon and had deliberated for five hours and 17 minutes when the judge gave them the option of reaching a majority verdict or a possible disagreement.

The 11 jurors returned less than two hours later and when the registrar asked the forewoman of the jury if they had reached a verdict on which at least ten of them agreed, she said “No”.

Ms Justice Eileen Creedon said the jury had written ‘Disagreement’ next to the count on the issue paper and thanked them for their service.

“I know this was a very difficult case and thank you for the time you gave to it,” she added.

The judge exempted them from jury service for ten years.

She remanded Kerrie on continuing bail on the same terms and conditions until the next list of fixed dates at the Central Criminal Court on 3 March.

Kerrie made no reaction when the disagreement was announced.

The two-week murder trial at the Central Criminal Court heard that Power sustained a single stab wound to the front of the chest which penetrated his heart.

Counsel for the DPP, Michael Delaney SC, said the jury could be satisfied that the prosecution had proved the case of murder against Mr Kerrie beyond a reasonable doubt.

Whilst the defence said in its closing address that this was an enormous tragic event, they submitted it was an act of self defence. “Mr Kerrie had no intention to do anything other than protect his own home,” said defence barrister Ciaran O’Loughlin SC.

The jury had the option of returning three verdicts in relation to the murder charge against Kerrie, namely; guilty of murder, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter or not guilty.

In her charge to the jury, the judge said if they were satisfied that Kerrie was not acting in self defence, that the accused knew that the force used by him was excessive and that he intended to kill or cause serious harm to Power then the offence of murder had been set out.

If, having considered the evidence, the jury found Kerrie had an honest belief that Power had entered the house as a trespasser to commit a criminal act and they found the force used by Kerrie was reasonable, then the accused was not acting unlawfully and should be acquitted.

If the jury found that Kerrie had an honest belief that Power entered the house as a trespasser but that the accused employed more force than necessary in the circumstances but no more force than he felt was reasonable, then they must return a verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.

‘Fallen on the knife’

Kerrie (20), with an address at St Brigid’s Square, Portarlington in Co Laois had pleaded not guilty to murdering Power (25) at Shanakiel, Dunmore East, Co Waterford on July 26, 2018.

Kerrie took to the stand at his own trial last week, telling the jury that Power had kicked in the front door of his home, attacked him and threatened to kill his mother.

Under cross-examination, prosecution counsel Delaney put it to the accused that it was “a pack of lies” to suggest Power had “fallen on the knife” and submitted that the accused had instead deliberately stabbed him.

Kerrie said that Power had “tried to kick the knife out of my hand. I went to move out of the way at the same time and then when he came in on top of me he lost his footing.”

In his closing speech, Delaney said the case “bore out the true folly of taking the law into your own hands”.

The defendant, he argued, could have let Power walk out of his house that night but decided to take the law into his hands “at a level much greater and with much deadlier consequences” than Power intended when he entered the Kerrie home.

Describing Kerrie’s account as “inherently implausible” and “stretching credibility”, Delaney suggested to the defendant when he was on the stand that this was an act of retaliation and not an act of self-defence, which the accused denied.

Kerrie also refuted the proposition from counsel that he had deliberately stabbed Power in the chest and there was nothing accidental about the incident.

“That’s not true,” said the accused. The lawyer told the jurors in his closing speech that “the most telling piece of evidence” were the accused’s words heard in the background that night when his mother was on the phone to gardaí.

These, he said, were not the words of someone who was in fear of their life as Kerrie had told gardaí on the phone that night.

The defendant had accepted in his evidence that he could be heard shouting “I’ll take your life, I hope you’re dead. I’ll take your life” in the background on the 999 call.

Delaney stressed in his closing speech that these were words of “defiance and malice”, which revealed the accused’s true state of mind when he stabbed the fisherman.

He told the jury that they could be satisfied that the prosecution had proved the case of murder against Kerrie beyond a reasonable doubt.

999 call

The jury listened to a 999 recording of Kerrie telling a dispatcher “I’m actually so in fear of my life right now” after he said he stabbed Power “by accident” and that the man had come “in the front door at him” and tried to hit him.

“I did it but I didn’t mean to though,” Kerrie told the emergency services. “My life is going to be gone over him coming in here,” he also said.

Evidence was given that Power was of the view that damage to the wing mirror of his car had been caused maliciously by Kerrie that night.

Power then made his way into the defendant’s house, where an altercation took place between the two men.

Kerrie told the jury that a chair had been put up against the door for the previous few months as they were waiting to get a new lock on it.

The deceased’s best friend, Christopher Lee, testified that Power had run towards Kerrie’s house that night but he lost sight of him at the corner as he took off.

“I could hear glass breaking but I couldn’t see,” he said. When he got around the corner, Lee said a window in the Kerrie house had been broken and Power was in the hallway of the accused’s house.

“He [Kerrie] had a long knife in his hand and he shouted at Jack something about the house. Jack turned around and that’s when Dean stabbed him with the knife. I knew it was the upper body and he [Jack] had his back to me,” Lee told the jury.

“Jack turned around to walk out [of the house] towards me. I was shouting at him, he didn’t even acknowledge me, he had gone so pale.

He went to walk past me as if I wasn’t there,” he said.

Kerrie gave evidence that he woke up “to the noise of glass breaking”, heard the door being kicked in and met Power at the door to his brother’s bedroom. ”

He grabbed me by the neck, he was choking me, I was dizzy on the ground. He threw me into the corner underneath the shelf,” said Kerrie.

When the accused came to after a few minutes, Kerrie said Power was screaming in his mother’s face saying that he was going to kill her and was pulling her backwards by the hair.

The defendant took a knife from the foot of his brother’s bed and said he stabbed the deceased with it.

The prosecution said in its closing remarks that “a decoy” black and white handled knife was “planted” by Kerrie in the hallway of his house, which was swabbed for blood but “curiously no blood was found on the blade”.

Gardaí found a similar blood-stained knife partially concealed on the draining board in the kitchen of the house, which contained Power’s DNA.