Attempted murder trial continues in Royal Court

Friday 03 March 2017

A scaffolder accused of stabbing his close friend during a drunken row has denied washing his blood-soaked clothes to mislead the Police.

Gerard Eamon Maguire (49) denies attempting to murder his friend of around seven years, Shaun Patrick Howard (63), and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Mr Maguire told a jury yesterday that Mr Howard was the "aggressor", and had started the altercation.

Advocate Steenson, prosecuting, challenged Mr Maguire on numerous occasions over why he chose to wash his clothes at 03:00 following the alleged attack. But, referring to an injury to his upper eyebrow allegedly inflicted by Mr Howard, Mr Maguire responded: "I washed my clothes because they were covered in blood, my blood."

He later added: "If I was trying to cover up evidence, I would have put [my trainers] in the washing machine along with my clothes, wouldn't I?"

Throughout, however, Advocate Steenson described Mr Maguire's claims as "absolute nonsense."

"You're just prepared to say anything to save your skin, aren't you?" he stated.

Marie Maguire - the defendant's sister, and final witness before the jury - later told the Court that Mr Maguire was not usually aggressive while drunk.

"He gets embarrassing, he's loud, he's like a typical drunk... He's never ever been violent," she said.

Both sides summed up their cases this afternoon.