LAST UPDATE | 3 Nov 2023

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 took the stand in his defence and has now completed his evidence before the Central Criminal Court. Under cross-examination he accepted that he had previously lied to gardai but denied that he had “concocted yet another set of lies for this jury”.

He said he cannot remember alleged admissions that he made to murdering Ashling when he spoke to gardai while he was in St James’s Hospital in Dublin.

Prosecution counsel Anne-Marie Lawlor put it to him that he was lying when he said he tried to help Ms Murphy, that there was no other man there and that he had stabbed Ms Murphy eleven times and “sliced her neck with the twelfth wound”.

He said: “I was on that place and I was trying to help her.” He said there was another man there and “it wasn’t me” who caused the injuries to her neck.

Puska also told Lawlor that on the night of the 12 January, after Ms Murphy had been murdered, he asked people at his home “if they could burn” the clothes he had been wearing that day. When Lawlor asked if the clothes were burned, he said: “Maybe yes, because I didn’t see them any more. I have no further information.”

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 12 January 2022.

In his direct evidence, 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.”

Puska said the man stabbed him again in the stomach and “kept shouting something, I really don’t know what.” 

He said he only understood from the attacker that he was “shouting and he was threatening, I don’t know anything else, I don’t know why he was threatening me, I don’t know him.”

He said he has never seen the man since and described him as about 1.8 metres tall, wearing a black cap or hat, a dark navy jacket and dark trousers. He wore a mask similar to those used by health professionals or “like a surgical mask people wore during covid”, he said.

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.”

Puska said the man and woman “disappeared among the bushes” to the side of the towpath and 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.”

Puska said he then saw the man running towards the N52 Bridge. Puska described going to Ms Murphy and seeing her injuries. 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 said: “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 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” which caused him to shout. Stack started running, he said, and that was when he noticed another woman also on the pavement who started running.

Puska denied that when Stack looked at him he “shouted at her angrily”. He said that the injuries he saw on Ms Murphy were to the right side of her neck, “two or three injuries, but I’m not sure, there was blood.”

Bowman asked if he touched Ms Murphy or if she touched him. “She touched my hand, yes,” Puska said.

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.”

Puska said he must have lost consciousness and remembers waking up later that night in the ditch. “I pulled myself up from the ditch and somewhere in this area there were lights… those lights were making beep sounds.” He said he walked away from the lights, towards the N52 flyover.

When Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding, asked why the accused went away from the lights, Puska said: “I was scared and I was stressed.”

He said he ran up a steep hill onto the N52 and walked towards the nearby Tesco. Along the way he felt sick and had to kneel down by the side of the road to rest. He walked to his friend Rostislav Pokuta’s house near Church Rd and asked for a lift home. He said he told his friend he had been attacked and Pokuta brought Puska to his home in Mucklagh.

He said he left his home late that night with his parents, driven by his male cousin but he has “no idea what time it was”. They went to Puska’s parents’ flat in Crumlin, south Dublin. He said his parents were asking him what happened but he “didn’t want to tell them about things like that”. He told his parents he was tired and wanted to lie down.

He said he is unsure what time he awoke the following morning, but when he went to the toilet he started vomiting blood.

“That was when I realised this must be serious,” he said. “Until then I was not in such serious pain. Then I remember I was unable to move.” An ambulance was called and he was taken to St James’s Hospital in Dublin.

He said he remembers telling gardai that he had been stabbed in Blanchardstown, something he now accepts was a lie. He said he underwent an operation that evening and the following day he had “severe pain”.

He agreed that he had heard evidence from two detectives and an interpreter who said that Puska had accepted that he killed Ms Murphy while in St James’s Hospital on 14 January, the day after the operation and two days after Ms Murphy’s death.

“I heard that but I cannot agree with that,” Puska said.

He said: “I don’t remember that day at all. But I know what was mentioned… There is a possibility that I said that but I cannot recall this and I cannot agree to this.”

Bowman said to his client: “You have told us you did not harm Ms Murphy.”

“Yes,” Puska replied

“And that’s the truth?” asked counsel.

“Yes, this is the truth,” Puska said.

Under cross-examination Puska agreed with Lawlor that “we are hearing this story for the first time” and that Puska had 20 months “to come up with this story”. He agreed that he had previously lied “on some things” and said that on other occasions when questioned by gardai he used his right to silence.

He said he does not recall the alleged admissions he made in St James’s Hospital but remembers lying to gardai about being stabbed in Blanchardstown. He apologised for lying and said he did it because he was worried about his family.

He explained that he didn’t want to say what really happened because, “I didn’t want to tell anything to my family about it because I was worried my brothers or someone would try to find somebody and they could get into trouble and I didn’t want to risk this.”

Puska further agreed that he is saying that he was “a witness” to Ms Murphy’s murder.

Lawlor continued: “And in response to that you hid in a field, in a ditch, for hours, is that right?”

“Yes, I do agree,” Puska replied.

He disagreed with Lawlor’s suggestion that he “fled from Tullamore” but agreed that he left around midnight to go to Dublin. He said he did not “deliberately” change his appearance but agreed that he did shave off his beard. He said he had scratches on his face and wanted to “find out where are my scratches.. that’s all, there was no other reason behind it.”

He said he could not agree that he confessed to murder in St James’s Hospital because he cannot recall it.

Lawlor said: “I need to understand your new story, you’re agreeing with me that despite being a witness to a murder, you first confessed to it and then you told gardai you knew nothing about it.” Puska agreed.

Lawlor said: “I’m not going to beat about the bush, you have concocted yet another set of lies for this jury.”

Puska said he had “said what I remember from the day of the 12th of January”.

Lawlor put it to him that he is lying.

“Everybody has an opinion for this, but I said what I remember,” said Puska.

Lawlor asked why, when Pokuta was driving Puska home, Puska asked his friend to drop him at a point further up the road than his actual house. He said he was “worried that someone could be near the house.” He said he had been attacked and “that guy was threatening me and I was scared.”

Lawlor pointed out that it is 8km from Puska’s home to where he said he was stabbed. She asked: “Did you give him your address in Mucklagh when he was stabbing you?”

He said: “No, but when he stabbed me he was threatening my family, I thought he knew my family, I was just cautious.”

He further explained that the man had “threatened me about my wife, that he would hurt her”.

The accused agreed with Lawlor that there was a possibility that police could have been at his house because he had left his bicycle beside Ms Murphy’s body and his DNA under her fingernailPuska agreed that Ms Murphy was still alive and moving when he was with her and said that his efforts were directed towards assisting her.

“I was trying to help her, what was in my power, but I had no experience of medical care.”

He denied telling Jenna Stack to “get away” and said he was not shouting at her but was “shouting because I was in pain”. Lawlor asked if he called for help or used “any words like that”.

He said: “In that moment, I did not say anything because when I shouted then the person [Ms Stack] ran away. There was no time for me to say anything.”

“Did you just stay there and watch Ashling Murphy die?” Lawlor asked.

“I left after a few moments, after they left, then I left,” he said.

“Did you wait until she was dead?”

“No,” Puska replied.

Lawlor said: “You stopped helping her before she was dead?”

“When I saw I can’t help her, that it’s not in my power, I left.”

He denied that he “hid in a ditch”, saying that he had “no strength, no power, I could not continue”.

Lawlor put it to Puska that he was not trying to help Ms Murphy, that there was no other man and that he stabbed Ms Murphy eleven times and “sliced her neck with the twelfth wound”.

He said: “I was on that place and I was trying to help her.” He said there was another man there and “it wasn’t me” who caused the injuries to her neck.

He denied that Ms Murphy, in a “desperate attempt to save herself” had scratched Puska, causing his DNA to get under her fingernails. “She didn’t do that to me at all,” he said.

He said that Ms Murphy had been wearing gloves, adding: “I was there, I was by her and there is a possibility that my DNA was there, but I know she had gloves, it’s strange.”

Lawlor put it to him that he had lied “consistently” to gardaí in hospital, in Tullamore Garda Station and “you are lying today as well”.

“I am saying to you what I remember,” Puska said.

Mr Justice Tony Hunt told the jury of nine men and three women that one more defence witness will be called on Monday before counsel for the prosecution will begin its closing speech. He asked the jury to put the matter aside for the weekend and not to discuss it with anyone.

The trial continues on Monday.