Jury in 'Conor McGregor' knockout trial asks judge about fall

The jury in the trial of a man who admits killing but denies murdering a young Dublin construction worker with a "Conor McGregor" style knockout have asked the trial judge if it is a legal defence that the deceased was so intoxicated at the time that he could not break his fall.

The prosecution have told the jurors that it was a punch thrown by Maurice Boland which caused the deceased Cian Gallagher to fall and hit the back of his head. The trial has heard that both men had been drinking before Mr Gallagher was killed.

However, the defence argued in their closing address that the pathologist could not have been clearer in her evidence that the fall caused the damage to the deceased Mr Gallagher and not the punch from the accused. 

The jury of eight men and four women began considering their verdict after midday this afternoon and have spent a total of two hours and 53 minutes deliberating in their jury room in the Criminal Courts of Justice building. 

The judge concluded his charge to the jurors this morning in the trial of Maurice 'Mossie' Boland (36) of Bridgeview Close, Tallow, Co Waterford who has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to the manslaughter of Cian Gallagher (26) at Barrack St in Tallow on November 10, 2022.

After 4pm today, Mr Justice Paul McDermott told the jurors they could go home for the evening and asked them to come back to the Central Criminal Court at 10.30am in the morning.

Earlier, the jurors handed the judge up a note asking a number of questions including whether it was a legal defence that the deceased was so intoxicated at the time that he could not break his fall. Mr Justice McDermott said it was not.

The jurors also asked for further clarification concerning the concept of "unintended consequences". The judge told the jury that proof must have been established that the accused intended to kill or cause serious injury. "If there is any reasonable possibility he did not intend to kill or cause serious injury the charge is not made out," he added. 

The jury also asked for examples of "serious injury" and the judge instructed them to use their common sense in relation to this. "The real question for you is was it intended he would cause serious injury," he said.

In her closing speech yesterday, prosecution counsel Roisin Lacey SC told the murder trial jury that Mr Boland "targeted" and "relentlessly pursued" Mr Gallagher as he walked alone on the street of the rural town before "proudly and boastfully" using the phrase "a Conor McGregor knockout" to describe "flooring" the victim as he retreated.

Michael Bowman SC, defending, submitted in his closing statement that to attach weight to the "ludicrous and offensive statement" of "a Conor McGregor knockout" was no more than "drunken mouthing off" and a facile reference. 

The jury has heard that the deceased man was from the Malahide Road in Dublin 17 and worked in a managerial type role mainly on civil construction projects up to the time of his death.

The 12 jurors were told by the State in the opening address that Mr Gallagher, who was working on a construction project in Co Waterford, died from a brain bleed eight days after he was punched and knocked to the ground by the accused man in the early hours of November 2.

At the opening of the trial, prosecution counsel told the jury that CCTV footage shows the accused punching Mr Gallagher when the deceased had his hands up and was backing away. She said the footage showed that Mr Gallagher was not at all offensive even when he was being "set upon".

Witnesses told the trial that the accused boasted he had knocked Mr Gallagher out in the style of mixed martial artist Conor McGregor "like he was proud of it" and said that he should have been in the UFC and didn't know his own strength. 

Completing his charge to the jury of eight men and four women today, Mr Justice McDermott said "the key issue" for them is whether the accused intended to kill or cause serious injury in striking Mr Gallagher. 

The judge told the jurors that if they were satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that all the ingredients of the offence of murder had been proven by the State including an intention to kill or cause serious injury to the deceased then the appropriate verdict to return would be murder.

Mr Justice McDermott told the jury if they were not satisfied in relation to the accused's intent then the correct verdict is not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.

The jury can return two verdicts in relation to the murder charge against Mr Boland, namely; guilty of murder or not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. 

Mr Justice McDermott asked the 12 jurors to be unanimous in their verdict. The jurors were sent out to commence their deliberations after midday today. 

In his interviews, the accused told gardai that he was defending himself when he struck the deceased. 

Mr Boland added: "It happened so fast, it just when he went to hit me, I struck him, he dropped. I didn't realise how bad it was". The accused initially said he hit Mr Gallagher only once and that his punch landed on the side of the deceased's face. 

"I'm sorry I didn't go home," Mr Boland told detectives.

He later told gardai that he had hit Mr Gallagher approximately twice. "He was saying something about Ireland and the war, he on about Ireland and going into politics, he said Russians doing right thing or something". 

Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster gave the cause of death as a traumatic brain injury due to a fall onto the back of the head.

She pointed out that there was bruising to the right temporal area, which could have been due to a blow to the side of the head or from the fall.

Dr Bolster told the defence that the deceased's blood alcohol level was quite high eight days after the killing but it would have been significantly higher at the time of the incident when he went into a deep coma.

The expert witness also agreed with Mr Bowman that someone with such a blood alcohol level would be more vulnerable to a fall as their reaction time would be slower and they would be unable to break their fall.