Tralee murder trial: Senior counsel says man accused of murdering brother ‘is no Cainite’

Senior counsel for the man accused of murdering his brother in a graveyard in Tralee rejected the comparison with the biblical Cain and Abel story – “He is no Cainite. He did not murder his brother.” 

Brendan Grehan senior counsel for Patrick Dooley said the prosecution had used the twin ploys of ridicule and extreme exaggeration and he rejected the idea that this was the biblical Cain and Abel story: “He is no Cainite. He did not murder his brother. That has been his position throughout. It is different to his co-accused. He has always said and accepted he was there when the attack occurred.

“His purpose in being there was because others were attacking his bother – his flesh and blood – and that he went there to help him and that he has been mistakenly, intentionally or unintentionally, cast as one of the attackers in this case.

“When the prosecution were nitpicking about various aspects of what Patrick Dooley had to say they saw fit to ignore entirely the substance of his account and how it fits in with other evidence.” 

Jury told to let evidence be their guide

Mr Grehan said that Dean Kelly senior counsel for the prosecution had been schmoozing the Cork jury by referring to the likes of Michael Collins and Diarmuid ‘The Rock’ O’Sullivan but he reminded the jury it was not a contest among advocates – “The Dazzler Kelly and The Old Gun Grehan”. 

He told the jury to let the evidence be their guide.

The defence senior counsel said the prosecution was giving a sinister portrayal to many of the particulars in the case but he warned that anything could be made to look sinister.

Mr Grehan said that when Patrick Dooley was in Cork University Hospital being treated for his own hand injury which he said was sustained in defending his brother, he was questioned by gardaí and that this was within 24 hours of the incident at the centre of the case.

Mr Grehan summarised from the account given at this stage by Patrick Dooley: “He walked into the graveyard. The Cork crowd from The Straight Road halting site (were) running to the front of the graveyard, the Cork lads on top of his brother. Patrick ran in to try and help his brother. Patrick tried to pull some of the fellas off his brother. He got pulled off by someone.

“He could see a hand on (a weapon), he saw it up. Patrick reached in and tried to block it. Patrick’s hand badly cut and bleeding. Patrick hit one or two fellas. Tom (the deceased) was lying on the ground. There were too many to fight off.”

Mr Grehan said that in later garda interviews Patrick referred to his brother, the late Thomas Dooley, having mental illness. The defence counsel said the prosecution portrayed this as a malicious thing to say about his dead brother but Mr Grehan said it was said in a very compassionate, understanding, tender manner by Patrick Dooley.

He said the prosecution had referred to the word convoy “like it is a currency incapable of being exchanged for anything else,” in relation to three vans driven away from the scene. Mr Grehan challenged the suggestion that Patrick had been in a convoy.

Concluding, he said, “This whole case against Patrick is going to boil down to this single issue – are you satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that he had a weapon in his hand? You are going to have to be satisfied of that before you convict him of murder.” 

He said the prosecution had elevated the words, “Come on now boys” – which a witness in the graveyard attributed to Patrick Dooley – to a rallying call to the group but he suggested the same words were capable of being used in a calming manner, to the effect of, “Hold on now boys”.

Daniel Dooley

Brian McInerney senior counsel for Daniel Dooley opened his speech to the jury saying, “I am going to suggest to you in relation to Danny Dooley that the most profound and alarming piece of evidence you heard was a couple of days ago when Detective Garda Ernie Henderson was in the witness box and he accepted he was as surprised as I was when Siobhán Dooley mentioned Danny Dooley for the first time when she was in the witness box in this trial.” 

Mr McInerney brought to the attention of the jury the historical case of Tipperary man, Henry Gleeson, wrongly convicted of murder and hanged 83 years ago and following a campaign to exonerate him, was pardoned in 2015 and his remains are to be brought home and reinterred this weekend.

He said that the prosecution case was like a jigsaw – the full picture presented in the opening speech to the jury, followed by the laying out of evidence like pieces of a jigsaw. He said that in the opening there was no mention of Siobhán Dooley identifying Daniel because she had never done so, before naming him when she was in the witness box.

“Only in the middle of the trial that Siobhán Dooley announces, ‘Oh, Danny Dooley was there’. Mr Kelly did not mention Siobhán’s evidence (about Daniel) because they were not in the jigsaw box. She never mentioned Danny Dooley in any statement.

“I presume that this is what Mr Kelly is referring to as a wrinkle in the evidence. I disagree. It is a great, big crevasse in the evidence. It is a different case,” Mr McInerney said.

He said Siobhán had named in her statement someone who could not possibly have been in the graveyard that day and then testified that she meant Daniel, as the two men are “an awful lot alike” and that she just got confused about the names. Mr McInerney said she never went to the garda station and said she had made an awful mistake. He said she waited until she was in the witness box and named Danny for the first time when the trial was underway.

He said there was absolutely no phone traffic evidence in relation to Daniel Dooley. As for forensic evidence, Mr McInerney said, “He is not forensically linked to anything, anywhere, so there is another great big hole in the jigsaw picture.” 

He said the jigsaw box had a picture on the front but that inside the box were blurred pieces, missing pieces and pieces from another box.

Further closing speeches 

The murder trial is taking place before Ms Justice Ring and a jury of two women and twelve men (including two substitute jurors). 

All six of the accused who are on trial deny the charge of murdering 43-year-old Tom Dooley from Hazelwood Drive, Killarney, at New Rath Cemetery, Rathass, Tralee, on October 5 2022. 

Five defendants in the case – all with the surname Dooley – Patrick, 36, from Arbutus Grove, Killarney; Thomas Sr., 43, from the halting site, Carrigrohane Road; Thomas Jr., 21, from the halting site, Carrigrohane, Cork; Michael, 29, of the halting site, Carrigrohane, Cork, and Daniel, 42, of An Carraigin, Connolly Park, Tralee, County Kerry, are on trial, as is the sixth defendant who is a teenager.

Only 21-year-old Thomas Dooley Jr. faces the second charge that he intentionally or recklessly caused serious harm to Siobhán Dooley, the wife of the deceased man. He also denies this count.” 

Further closing speeches from defence lawyers will be delivered to the jury on Monday (July 8).