This article is from page 17 of the 2009-02-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 17 JPG
MICHAEL Doherty died from a sin- gle stab wound to the left side of the chest, which was inflicted through “moderate force”.
Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis carried out a post mortem examination on Mr Doher- ty’s body on June 24, 2007.
He told the trial on Friday morning that the boy had been transfused two units of blood but despite efforts to keep him alive, he was pronounced dead at 12.05am on June 24, less than
an hour after gardai had been called to the incident outside Supermac’s.
He noted that the young boy had been fit and well, was 5’ 9” in height and appeared considerably older than his age. He was of athletic build and had dyed fair hair.
He wore a yellow metal necklace with a pendant, fabric and plastic bracelets and had a condom and a €5 note in the back pocket of his Weel <0 8 Dr Curtis said that Mr Doherty had sustained a single stab wound to the chest, which was located 7.5 centi- metres to the left of the mid line. The wound was horizontally orientated and was three centimetres in length, he said. The stab wound entered the left chest cavity. It entered one wall of the chamber of the heart and went out through the other. “He died as a result of a single stab wound to the chest. It entered the chest on the left and ran from left to right at an angle of 30 degrees from horizontal. It entered the chest cav- ity,’ he said. There were no defence type inju- ries to the body, he said, adding that there had been vigorous efforts to re- suscitate him. Neither alcohol nor drugs were de- tected in the blood or urine. Asked had he drawn any conclu- sions as to the degree of force used, he replied that while he could not answer that in arithmetic terms, “It would require moderate force for this wound to be inflicted” in terms of the scale of mild, moderate, con- siderable and severe. Asked by defence counsel Patrick Gageby SC was the wound consistent with a “swinging” type of motion, Dr Curtis agreed that it was. Mr Gageby also asked had he de- tected any sign of an assault on the face or chin of the deceased and he said he had not. He also said he did not find any wounds or bruising on the boy’s hands. The trial heard details of a state- ment made by a paramedic in Ennis, which stated that the ambulance ar- rived at the scene on O’Connell Street at 11.19pm. CPR was performed en route to hospital and arrival time was 11.26pm.