The trial of Slovakian national Mr Puska heard from two women who told the court of seeing a bike and a man in the brambles at the canal in Tullamore, Co Offaly
Murder-accused Jozef Puska was “trying to assist” Ashling Murphy when a woman saw him on top of her, his defence lawyer has said.
Ms Stack told the trial of Mr Puska, who is accused of the murder of Ashling Murphy, how she saw Ms Murphy “kicking so hard” and said it appeared as though she was “crying out for help” as she said he held her down in a brambles area. Ms Stack told the court on Wednesday how she and her friend Aoife were out for a 7km run by the canal - when they noticed a bicycle lying in the bushes - and then heard “rustling.”
“We only went another couple of feet when we heard a lot of rustling in the hedgerow. It was quite distinctive,” Ms Stack told the court. "I think I might have shouted" are you ok, what are you doing. At that point then this man, he turned. He was crouched over something,” she said. "He was definitely still crouched over, holding her down,” she told the court. His face, his teeth, they were kind of grinding and he shouted "get away."
"At that point when I saw what was happening. I thought this guy was going to rape her to be honest. I said to him I have my phone on me, I'm calling the guards, get off her.” Ms Stack went to another house where a woman named Emma Doyle came to the door. "I told Emma what had happened. She said she had been on the canal and seen a guy that sounded like the guy I told her about,” Ms Stack said.
In cross examination Jozef Puska’s defence barrister Michael Bowman SC put it to the witness that his client was in fact helping Ms Murphy at the time. Ms Stack responded by saying that “wouldn’t have been the impression that I got. I did say I was going to call the guards,” she said. “You didn’t see that,” Mr Bowman put it to the witness - to which she responded - “no.” Ms Stack said that Ms Murphy was “moving the only part she could possibly move,” and that he was leaning over her “holding her down.”
She told the court that they heard noise in the ditch like “branches breaking” and that Jenna shouted at a man and said she was going to call the guards. Mr Bowman asks if at some stage she moved in beside Jenna. "Jenna was to my right, at an angle and I was kind of facing forward. I wasn't right over the ditch.
Mr Molloy said he recollects being told by them that there was a man with his hand on a girl's mouth and "I think on her throat,” and as a result he cycled back as fas as he could in the direction of where they said this had occurred. Mr Kelly said he saw a man on a black bicycle with a large jacket at Digby’s Bridge - with tracksuit bottoms, “distinctive” with a white band down the leg.Mr Kelly said the women were "very distressed looking and agitated and said one of the women said to him "help, help" and that "a woman's being attacked by a man on top of her” and to “call the guards.”
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