Puska family trial: Jury to continue deliberations tomorrow
A jury will return to the Central Criminal Court tomorrow to consider its verdicts in the trial of family members of Jozef Puska who are charged with offences relating to obstructing his arrest for the murder of schoolteacher Ashling Murphy.
The panel of seven men and five women began considering their verdict last Wednesday and have spent a total of 10 hours and five minutes deliberating.
At 1.45pm, presiding judge Ms Justice Caroline Biggs told the jurors she would let them go for the day after they had previously asked to cease their deliberations at an earlier time on Monday.
They will resume their deliberations at 11.30am tomorrow.
READ MORE
Jozef Puska (35) murdered Ms Murphy (23) on January 12th, 2022 while she exercised along the canal towpath outside Tullamore, Co Offaly. He was later convicted of murder and is serving a life sentence.
His brothers, Lubomir Puska jnr (38) and Marek Puska (36) are charged with withholding information from gardaí.
Their wives, Viera Gaziova (40) and Jozefina Grundzova (32) are charged with impeding the apprehension or prosecution of Puska by burning his clothes.
All the accused were living with Puska, his wife Lucia, and 14 children at Lynally Grove, Mucklagh, Co Offaly when the offences are alleged to have occurred in January 2022. All accused have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
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Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Boston rape case: The full story of Dublin firefighter Terence Crosbie's trial
After a six-day trial and more than 22 hours of jury deliberations, a Dublin firefighter arrested on rape charges in a US city last year remains behind bars, his fate still in limbo. A Boston judge declared a mistrial and the jury 'hung' on Friday, sending the jury of eight men and four women home, and Terence Crosbie (38) back to the Nashua Street Jail. If a retrial moves forward, Mr Crosbie will once again face charges for raping a 29-year-old attorney. The alleged assault was first reported to authorities by the woman at a hospital in the early hours of March 15th, 2024. READ MORE The night began at The Black Rose, an Irish pub in the city on one of the busiest nights for the bar, leading up to St Patrick's weekend. The Black Rose Irish pub in Boston The woman alleged she returned to the hotel room of a Dublin firefighter she met at the bar for a night of consensual sex. She was with a man she described as a little shorter than herself, bald, white, with an Irish accent and who authorities later identified as Liam O'Brien. Mr Crosbie and Mr O'Brien had travelled to Boston as part of a Dublin Fire Brigade contingent that was due to march in the city's St Patrick's Day parade. The woman claimed she fell asleep in the other bed and woke up to another man who 'was not bald' but who 'also had an Irish accent' raping her. The man, she claimed, mocked Mr O'Brien and insisted that she 'wanted it'. All this occurred to the 'dull background soundtrack', as a prosecutor put it, of Mr O'Brien's continuous snoring. 'Our nightmares belong in our sleep,' prosecutor Daniela Mendes told the jury in her opening statement on the first day of trial. 'Her nightmare began as she woke up.' Throughout, Mr Crosbie was steadfast in his insistence that he was wrongly accused and had been held behind bars for 15 months, unable to make bail or afford living costs in the foreign country. 'I'm going to ask you to consider Mr Crosbie's nightmare. I'm going to ask you to end that nightmare,' said defence attorney Daniel C Reilly in his closing argument to the jury. The assault allegedly took place at the historic Omni Parker House, the hotel made famous as the location where a young US politician named John F Kennedy proposed to Jacqueline Bouvier. The case was heard blocks away at the Suffolk Superior courthouse, an art deco relic with marbled hallways and wood panel courtrooms in the heart of Boston. The Omni Parker House hotel in Boston The jury heard testimony from the woman and Mr Crosbie, with assistance from a transcript, at times, to parse Mr Crosbie's accent. His defence team alleged the woman was a 'less than reliable reporter due to intoxication and memory lapses'. They argued that she did not remember Mr O'Brien's first or last name or having ever met Mr Crosbie. They made insinuations about her promiscuity and questioned her about psychiatric medication on the stand. On the other side, the prosecution alleged Mr Crosbie's testimony was 'rehearsed and insincere'. The woman was the prosecution's first witness. She testified that on Thursday, March 14th she had been hosting a social work gathering, went to a restaurant with colleagues afterwards and then to The Black Rose with a coworker. In cross-examination, Mr Crosbie's legal team asserted she had been out drinking for more than 10 hours. Dublin Fire Brigade member Terence Crosbie (centre) alongside his defence lawyers Daniel C Reilly (left) and Patrick Garrity during his trial in a Boston court. Photograph: Susan Zalkind A witness for the defence – Dr Chris Rosenbaum, who serves as the director of medical toxicology for Newton Wellesley Hospital – testified that the complainant reported a 'prior history of binge drinking' in her medical documents and that her blood alcohol level at the time she reported the assault the next morning can 'correlate with memory loss and impairment'. He said she could have been almost three times the legal driving limit at the time of the alleged assault. Prosecutors argued that she had her wits about her. They played CCTV video of The Black Rose from the evening in question. In the witness box, she pointed herself out in the video to jurors as the individual dancing 'very awkwardly' and trying to get others to join in. She said Mr O'Brien and his colleagues were wearing T-shirts identifying themselves as members of the Dublin Fire Brigade. CCTV video later showed her and Mr O'Brien entering the hotel, just before midnight, taking the elevator and walking towards room 610. Other video footage showed Mr Crosbie walking to a lobby area on the sixth floor, adjust the chair and scroll through his phone for the next two hours. Terence Crosbie. Photograph: X The woman said she didn't know Mr O'Brien had a roommate. CCTV video and hotel records later supported Mr Crosbie's testimony that they met briefly at the bar and he was briefly in the room when the woman and Mr O'Brien first arrived, and that he 'read between the lines' and quickly left the room. She testified that after having sex with Mr O'Brien she went to the bathroom and left the light on. When she returned Mr O'Brien was already asleep and taking up the majority of the bed, so she got into the other bed and fell asleep, intending to leave and work from home the next day. She told the court she 'woke up to somebody on top of me' raping her, she told the court, in tears. 'This person was taller than Liam and was not bald and I could hear Liam snoring,' she said. The woman testified that the man, who prosecutors said was Mr Crosbie, also disparaged Mr O'Brien, while assaulting her, saying that Mr O'Brien 'can't even do this for you – what a loser'. She testified that she could feel his weight on top of her and she told him to 'stop!' But he didn't, the court heard. When she eventually managed to manoeuvre her legs off the side of the bed and break free, and started to collect her clothes, she testified that Mr Crosbie continued to follow her around the hotel room, trying to kiss her. She said she went to the bathroom and that Mr Crosbie tried to get in and 'was jiggling the handle' after she locked the door. Under cross-examination, defence attorney Mr Reilly noted that she initially reported that the assailant was about her height and her testimony did not include details about Mr Crosbie's birthmarks or tattoos. 'I was trying not to look,' she said. The prosecution noted that she texted a friend at 2.18am as she left the hotel. 'I hate everyone,' she wrote. 'What the f*** is wrong with people.' 'I woke up and a guy was inside of me telling me I wanted it and telling me how pathetic it was that his friend couldn't give that,' the court heard. She then walked home, changed and went to hospital, bringing the clothes she wore in the hotel. There she reported the rape. DNA analyst Alexis Decesaris testified that the evidence collected from the woman was 'consistent' with there being 'two individuals' separate from her who were both male. There was a high likelihood that one of those male profiles belonged to Mr O'Brien, the court heard, but due to the limited amount of material collected it was unclear if the second set of male DNA, obtained from the woman's genitals, was deposited by Mr Crosbie. The defence argued that the testing 'did not identify Terence Crosbie's DNA'. Prosecutors argued that the finding of two male profiles matched the woman's account. The jury heard from Mr Crosbie twice, in a recorded police interview before his arrest, and as the concluding witness when he took the stand in the trial. 'I 100 per cent didn't do this. I've done nothing wrong,' Mr Crosbie said. 'I had no physical or sexual contact with her at all.' He said he knocked on the door when he returned to the hotel and shouted for Mr O'Brien. He said the room was dark and he 'heard no reply'. He said he used the torch on this phone to find his way to his bed and the complainant wasn't there. 'There was nobody in my bed, my bed was empty,' he told the court. He said he brushed clothes off his bed, and crawled under the covers in his boxer shorts. About a minute and a half after he got into bed he testified that he heard someone 'rummaging around the room' and assumed the woman was collecting her things to leave. He disputed the woman's account that he called Mr O'Brien a loser; this was not 'an Irish term' that he would use, he argued. Mr Crosbie claimed he attempted to fly back to Dublin on an early flight home because he was 'scared like a rabbit in the headlights' after being questioned by police. When Mr Crosbie took the stand, prosecutors also played a portion of his interview with police that had been previously redacted in which he told detectives he had masturbated in the hotel room and asked whether his DNA could have got on the complainant that way. A pair of Mr Crosbie's underwear with semen on it was later collected as evidence. In cross-examination, prosecutors pointed out that Mr Crosbie would not have had time to masturbate alone in his room until after the alleged assault. Mr Crosbie's defence team stressed that his story about masturbation was 'hypothetical'. In closing arguments, prosecutor Erin Murphy told jurors that they 'might not agree' with or 'relate' to the complainant's choice to go to the hotel with Mr O'Brien but that it was 'her choice'. 'That doesn't mean that that man's hotel roommate gets to rape her,' she said. Mr Crosbie is not the 'unluckiest man in the world; he is the man who raped [the woman] and he is the man who got caught', she told the jury. Mr Reilly argued that prosecutors had not met their 'high burden' of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. 'I suggest to you there are multiple reasonable doubts in this case,' he said.
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
TV guide: The Bear returns, and the other best new shows to watch on RTÉ, Disney+, and Netflix this week
Pick of the week Natasha Wednesday, RTÉ One, 9.35pm In 2022 Natasha O'Brien was violently assaulted on a street in Limerick, in a random attack that left her bleeding and unconscious. The attacker, Cathal Crotty , was a serving soldier in the Defence Forces, and there was a public outcry when he received a suspended sentence for his cowardly and brutal act. This documentary follows O'Brien's subsequent refusal to stay silent about her treatment at the hands of a deeply flawed Irish legal system, and her subsequent battle to get justice for the trauma which was inflicted upon her. Thanks to her relentless campaigning, the DPP appealed Crotty's sentence and he was sentenced to two years in prison. With help from other women who shared their stories of facing their attackers in court, and from politicians including Labour leader Ivana Bacik and expert criminologist Dr Ian Marder, O'Brien looks at ways the system can be reformed to take ensure that victims' voices are heard. Highlights From that Small Island: The Story of the Irish Sunday, RTÉ One, 6.30pm From that Small Island: Marion Casey in New York Nigel Farage can't seem to understand why Ireland would not want to join with the UK and leave the European Union; perhaps he should watch this third episode of this landmark historical series, as it might explain why his Irexit idea went down like a lead balloon. The 17th century saw mass migration of Irish to continental Europe, displaced by the brutal conquest by Oliver Cromwell, and this episode tracks the first diaspora as they set up new lives in various European countries. The programme also follows the Irish who signed up to French, Spanish and Austrian armies in the wake of the Williamite wars at the end of the 17th century, and became known as the Wild Geese. It marked the beginning of centuries-long ties between Ireland and Europe that will take more than a few bellowing Brexiteers to break. The programme, narrated by Colin Farrell, also looks at the life of anti-slavery campaigner Daniel O'Connell, known as the Liberator, and how he influenced black abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass. Aistear an Amhráin Monday, RTÉ One, 7pm This series looking at the stories behind well-known songs ends with one of Ireland's most beloved bangers, An Poc ar Buile. The song was recorded in 1962 by Seán Ó Sé, and became an instant classic, but there's a tale to the tune that dates from the 17th century. The song about a mad billy goat was written in the 1940s by Donal Ó Mulláin and became associated with Puck Fair in Killorglin, Co Kerry, but the original poem it was based on has a darker meaning. An Boc ar Buile, written in the 1600s, was about a local landlord trying to exercise his right to have sexual relations with a tenant's bride on her wedding night. Given recent stories about landlords demanding sex from tenants as payment for rent, maybe the original version is due a revisit. The Gilded Age Monday, Sky Atlantic & Now, 9pm The Gilded Age Long before Sex and the City, New York was ruled by an elite coterie of well-got women, all vying for power and position in the upper echelons of high society in Upper East Side Manhattan of the 1880s. The Gilded Age is set during a period of huge transformation, when old money is under attack from a new generation of upwardly mobile industrialists and entrepreneurs, all hoping to buy their way into privilege. Louisa Jacobson stars as Marian Brook, a newcomer in New York society who arrives in the midst of a social war between the old-money Van Rhijn-Brooks and the new-money Russell family. Marian must quickly learn the rules of the game – and make up a few of her own – if she is to survive in this cut-throat world. Cynthia Nixon from SATC and Christine Baranski costar, and series three takes up the story in the aftermath of the so-called Opera War, which has given the Russells the social advantage. How will the old-money crowd hit back? This could turn into an epic confrontation. READ MORE Death in the Desert: The Nurse Helen Mystery Monday, Channel 4, 9pm Helen Smith was a young nurse working in Saudi Arabia in 1979, enjoying her adventure and making new friends in a culture very different from her own. At just 23 years old, however, Helen died in mysterious circumstances. The official story was that she fell from a balcony at a party, and her death was ruled an accident, but questions lingered over the lack of a thorough police investigation and whether her death really was accidental. This documentary looks back on Helen's life in Saudi Arabia and the political and cultural climate of the time, and tries to uncover what really happened on that balcony more than 45 years ago. Amol Rajan Goes to the Ganges Wednesday, BBC One, 9pm Amol Goes to the Ganges The Maha Kumbh Mela Festival in northern India is the world's largest religious festival, and the biggest gathering of human beings on the planet, attended by almost 500 million people from around the globe – more than the combined populations of the US and UK converging on an area the size of Manhattan. Joining them for this special documentary is journalist and presenter Amol Rajan, and he's visiting for personal reasons – to help him come to terms with the death of his father three years ago, and to reconnect with the land of his birth. The Kumbh festival happens only every dozen years, and this year's festival coincides with a rare alignment of the planets, making it extra special for pilgrims. Amol meets many of these pilgrims, all here to purify themselves in the polluted waters of the Ganges, but he also comes close to tragedy as a huge crowd surge results in the deaths of 30 people. Murder on the Doorstep: The Killer Clown Wednesday, Sky Crime & Now, 9pm Dan Reimer, who features in Murder On The Doorstep: The Killer Clown In the 1990s, a young woman, Marlene Warren, was shot dead on the doorstep of her own house in Florida by a mystery assailant. The killer had dressed as a clown to disguise their identity, but police immediately suspected Marlene's husband, Michael Warren, of his wife's murder. Their marriage was in trouble, and there were rumours of extramarital affairs, but Michael had a rock-solid alibi and the police had no proof, so he was eliminated as a suspect. Nearly 30 years later, though, police make an apparent breakthrough, charging Michael's alleged mistress Sheila Keen with Marlene's murder. But is there more to this murder than meets the eye? This three-part docuseries looks back at the investigation, interviewing investigators, witnesses, friends and family members in an attempt to unravel a very tangled web of lies and betrayal. Glastonbury 2025 Live Thursday, BBC One, 10pm The BBC's live coverage of this year's Glasto in Pilton, Sussex, kicks off on Thursday, but all this week the Beeb will be airing programmes in anticipation of the big weekend, beginning with three half-hour specials featuring Glastonbury legends from the 1970s (Monday, BBC Two, 10pm), 1980s (Tuesday, BBC Two, 10pm) and 1990s (Wednesday, BBC Two, 10pm). Clara Amfo and Lauren Laverne will be on hand at Worthy Farm to look forward to the fun in store for the weekend, which will see headline performances on the Pyramid stage by The 1975, Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts and Olivia Rodrigo. If you haven't got tickets for the festival, the BBC's coverage of the onstage action will be almost as good as the real thing – and a lot less mucky. Streaming Countdown From Wednesday, June 25th, Prime Video Countdown: Amber Oliveras and Mark Meachum A dead Homeland Security agent, a secret taskforce and a terror plot that could end in millions of deaths: maybe I won't have another consonant after all, Rachel, thank you very much. Jensen Ackles from The Boys heads the cast of this action-thriller series created by Derek Haas, the mind behind the FBI series and all its variants. Ackles is the LAPD cop Mark Meachum, who is recruited into the taskforce after the Homeland Security guy is murdered in broad daylight. The murder is just the tip of the iceberg, and soon Ackles and the team are racing to stop the bad guys from turning the citizens of LA into DOA. The Bear From Thursday, June 26th, Disney+ The Bear Chef-patron Carmy Berzatto is back in kitchen hell in the fourth series of the foodie dramedy, and he's still in pursuit of excellence in the former sandwich shop in Chicago that he inherited after the suicide of his brother, Michael. Carmy, a Michelin-star chef, has turned the dive into a fine-dining restaurant, but success is far from a done deal. Money is running out, and the kitchen is still in chaos and turmoil. Can Carmy create a calmer atmosphere in this culinary crucible? Jeremy Allen White stars as Carmy, with Ayo Edebiri, Oliver Platt and Jamie Lee Curtis among the cast. Squid Game From Friday, June 27th, Netflix How much of a gaming junkie do you have to be to go back into a game that could end in your death? In series two of the hit Korean series – Netflix's most successful non-English-language series – Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) went back into the game with a clear mission to take down the faceless organisation behind this murderous, macabre theme park, but in this third and final series he finds himself back in the Squid Game dorm after the failure of his attempted rebellion – and this time the games have been taken to even deadlier levels. Gi-hun must survive this last round and also outwit his treacherous adversary the Frontman as the tournament reaches its bloody, adrenaline-pumping climax. Smoke From Friday, June 27th, Apple TV+ The Rocket Man star Taron Egerton heads a strong cast in this new crime series about an arson investigator in pursuit of two serial pyromaniacs. Joining Egerton in the series – based on a true story – are Rafe Spall, Jurnee Smollett, Anna Chlumsky, Greg Kinnear and John Leguizamo. Egerton plays the investigator, with Smollett as the detective who becomes his reluctant partner; they'll have to find common ground if they are going to stop the firestarting spree before it gets completely out of control.
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
Irish influencers trolled on Tattle life: ‘They said I'm a bad mum. That I'm ugly. They wrote my address on it'
Earlier this week, Co Antrim entrepreneurs Neil and Donna Sands were awarded £300,000 (€352,000) in libel damages following a defamation and harassment lawsuit over abusive comments posted on gossip website Tattle Life. Tattle Life describes itself as a platform for 'commentary and critiques of people that choose to monetise their personal life as a business and release it into the public domain'. Users post messages and discuss influencers and others with an online profile, many of whom complain they are being trolled. A number of Irish influencers have been the subject of negative 'threads' on Tattle Life. The judge in the case, heard in Belfast , said it had been set up to deliberately inflict hurt and harm on others by allowing the anonymous trashing of people's reputations. The site was revealed on Friday, June 13th, as being operated by UK national Sebastian Bond. Julie Haynes' Instagram account Twins and Me has 218,000 followers. She first became aware of Tattle Life when one of her own online followers sent her a link to a comment posted about her on the site, she says. READ MORE 'I was sent a screenshot and then I went on and I was scrolling through the threads, and I was like, what the hell? ... They were saying stuff like I take drugs.' None of it was true, she says. 'Writing stuff like that is absolutely horrific,' Haynes says, but it didn't stop there. Haynes' father died during Covid. 'We had five people at the funeral. Me, my mam, my brother and my twins. And we had a camera set up in the church because we were allowed to do that at the time, and you just basically livestreamed it and family and friends at home were able to tune in. The link then was put up on Tattle Life and every single one of my trolls tuned in.' Her young son needed to go to the toilet during the funeral, and so she brought him. Comments followed that she had 'walked out of the church' and that the funeral was like 'an episode of EastEnders'. 'Every single move I made' was commented on, Haynes says. 'She's drunk, that's why she's run out of the church. She had to go get sick.' Julie Haynes and her children Erin Rose and Fionn Haynes says she has seen comments stating that she's 'a bad mum. That I'm ugly'. Her mother had breast cancer two years ago and had a mastectomy. Haynes shared her mother's experience with her followers, but because her mother's recovery was deemed quick by some she was accused of making the story up 'for content'. 'They wrote my address on it, saying that 'I'd love to go down Julie's house in X and kick ... her. They write about my children all the time. What they call my kids is absolutely horrific, they screenshot them. I'm so, so upset.' [ Women in Ireland increasingly subjected to online hate and misogyny, groups warn Opens in new window ] Haynes says she has considered taking her children offline. 'No one should be calling these children those names,' she says. Her social media presence is an income source. 'Only for my social media, I'd have nothing,' she says. 'I'm a single mum … I do all this for my kids. And the only way I can go for [a] mortgage is by working. To earn a couple of bob I do my social media but these trolls, then, are trying to ruin it.' For brands looking to work with influencers, 'the first thing you do is check Google and the first thing that pops up when you put in my name is all these Tattle threads'. Louise Cooney has 250,000 followers on Instagram. She became aware of Tattle Life around the time of the Covid pandemic. 'It has completely changed my life for the last five years. It's something I've never spoken about. It's incredibly traumatising and hurtful. Some of the things that have been said and written, and not having control over your digital footprint in that way, is really upsetting,' says Cooney. Louise Cooney: 'It's like a free-for-all because no one has put in rules' 'It's made me less trusting of people,' she says. 'It makes me second-guess people's intentions. And it makes me question everything that I do, how I share.' She says it's good to be cautious about sharing. Cooney stays away from the site as much as possible. She says she doesn't want the upset and stress it causes her to have an impact on her toddler son. 'Once or twice I've had a weak moment ... All it does is upset me. Why do I look? But then, if you know it's there and other people can read it, sometimes curiosity can get the better of you,' she says. 'We grew up in a generation ... we're the first ones doing this, and it's like a free-for-all because no one has put in rules.' Cooney says some people who believe that comment posted on the internet is anonymous and that they can't be traced perhaps don't realise that 'technology is advancing all the time. And of course it can be traced.' The experience has had an effect on her mental health: 'I definitely experience anxiety because of it.' Sisters Sue Jordan and Corrina Stone have, combined, almost 66,000 followers on Instagram and run the Mums on the Run group on Facebook. Sue Jordan and Corrina Stone Jordan first became aware of Tattle Life a few years ago when someone sent her a link to a thread, after she had been on the Elaine show with presenter Elaine Crowley on Virgin Media. Jordan had kept her job, working in frontline homeless services, very separate from her online presence, never speaking about her work due to its sensitive nature, she says. 'So to have people go on there and say this is what I do, keep an eye out for me, it put me in danger … I never shared that information ever. How dare anybody do that? But then it evolved into calling me an alcoholic. No such thing, never was. This is stuff that could actually affect my real-life job.' She describes what happens on Tattle Life as 'systemic harassment and abuse'. Tattle Life has had a 'massive' impact on Stone. She says there have been posts saying her children have a 'horrendous upbringing' and that they 'hate' her. 'They tried to savage my kids, my older kids, their dress sense, their fashion sense, their choices – everything,' Stone says. She says she has mostly stopped attending events. 'I think it's because I don't want to put myself out there any more to be slapped down every time. It's constantly in your head.' 'I've stopped going out generally. Other than school runs and groceries ... I've a tiny friend circle,' she says.
