![Richard Dekker]()
Richard Dekker
A barrister has asked a murder trial jury to consider what could have been intended when two men, one armed with a blade from a garden shears, lured a 17-year-old boy to an isolated riverbank where he was stabbed to death.
Brendan Grehan SC made his closing statement for the prosecution in the trial of Richard Dekker (30).
Mr Dekker, with an address in the Blanchardstown area of Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 17-year-old Daniel McAnaspie at Tolka Valley Park, Blanchardstown on February 26, 2010.
Mr Grehan told the jury that in statements to gardai Mr Dekker accused another man, Trevor Noone, of stabbing Daniel to death.
But he said Mr Dekker's involvement was to help lure the boy "like a lamb to the slaughter" knowing that Noone was carrying a blade from a garden shears and was intending to cause serious injury to the teen.
He said Mr Dekker knew Noone's "character", that he often carried knives and had once stabbed a dog to death and buried it in his garden.
Mr Dekker told gardai in interviews that he thought Noone only wanted to give Daniel "a hiding" or "a few digs" but Mr Grehan asked if that is the case: "Why was it necessary to bring him down to this isolated area with a lethal weapon?"
He said the prosecution could not assert that Mr Dekker had plunged the shears into Daniel McAnaspie, but he said it is clear that he aided and abetted Trevor Noone, knowing that Noone was intent on "at least seriously injuring Daniel McAnaspie".
He explained to the jury that a person can be guilty of murder even if they are not the attacker.
By assisting Trevor Noone, knowing that he was carrying a lethal weapon, he said Mr Dekker is guilty of murder.
Summarising the facts that he said are not in dispute, Mr Grehan said Daniel McAnaspie was a child who was in the care of the HSE.
Both of his parents were dead. On the night Daniel died he went to Whitestown Avenue in Blanchardstown where he was drinking with his friend Gary Arnold and two girls, Denise Kelly and Shauna Burke.
They were joined at some point in the evening by Richard Dekker and Trevor Noone.
Daniel was due to return to home at 9pm but, like many teenagers, he skipped his curfew.
At one point Trevor Noone punched Daniel in the face and knocked him to the ground but they immediately shook hands and witnesses said they seemed to make up.
In the early hours of the morning Daniel's friends left but he refused to go as he wanted to stay with Noone and Mr Dekker.
He was never seen alive again.
The HSE reported him missing and a search operation began but it was not until May 13, almost three months later, that his body was found.
It was found by a farmer in a 7-foot deep drainage ditch in Rathfeigh, Co Meath, 30 km from where the alleged killing took place.
The badly decomposed body was identified by matching it to DNA taken from Daniel's toothbrush.
A murder investigation was launched and a pathologist's report showed that Daniel had suffered multiple sharp force "penetrating and perforating" injuries to the body and neck and his clothes had evidence of stab cuts.
Mr Dekker was immediately a suspect but he denied all knowledge.
He was interviewed before Daniel's body was found and said he had no idea what happened to him.
After Daniel's body was found Mr Dekker was arrested and again told gardai that he had no idea how he was killed.
It was only after he was shown Trevor Noone's statement, in which Noone accused Mr Dekker of being the killer, that he revealed his knowledge of what happened to Daniel.
Defence counsel Sean Gillane SC said that he knows that he is addressing the jury "under the shadow of the death of a young boy who ought not to be dead".
He said they might consider his death "unspeakable" or an "act of barbarism" and think "to hell with Mr Dekker" but they must consider how they would feel if a loved one of theirs were being assessed by 12 strangers.
He said he wished his client were "more presentable, more articulate, more intelligent" and that he didn't wear his tie "around his neck like a noose".
He said the presumption of innocence might not be a place that they can start from in this case but they must, he said, start from the point that Trevor Noone, not Richard Dekker, killed Daniel McAnaspie by stabbing him with a shears.
"If you are not starting from there you are starting in the wrong place," he said.
He said the prosecution's case is that Trevor Noone killed Daniel, but that liability can be transferred from Noone to his client.
He said the evidence in the case showed that Mr Dekker did nothing to assist Noone and did not utter "a single syllable let alone a word of encouragement to him".
He said his client had no knowledge of the other man's "murderous intent" and that, in fact, Mr Dekker had shouted "stop, stop" and tried to convince Noone not to stab Daniel with the shears.
Mr Dekker's intention in bringing Daniel to Tolka Valley Park, as he told gardai, was that he would get a "hiding" and that Trevor Noone was going to give him a "few digs".
He said the jury might find it difficult to understand why people would be hitting each other digs in this way, but he pointed out that this did not happen in the lobby of the Gresham Hotel, but in Whitestown at 4am.
He accepted that his client initially lied to gardai but he asked the jury to consider that he did so only to protect Trevor Noone.
He also pointed out that much of what he later told gardai proved to be true, including the location of the killing, the weapon used and where the shears had been thrown into the Tolka River.
He said the law does not require that his client be a hero, or be brave or a good Samaritan or even that he show fellow feeling for someone being assaulted.
His failure to prevent Daniel's death "does not mean you can retrospectively transfer what someone did on to someone else's shoulders."
He said his client can only be liable if he actively participated in the killing and added: "It is just not in this case."
He concluded by saying that Richard Dekker is entitled to "no better a trial than one you would expect for someone you know and love." He asked the jury to do the right thing in accordance with their oaths.
Justice Patrick McCarthy will complete his charge to the jury tomorrow morning.