Woman felt man was following her on day of Ashling Murphy’s death, court hears

The court also heard a witness describe a man ‘crouching’ along Tullamore road after Ms Murphy’s death.

Floral tributes near the Grand Canal in Tullamore after the death of Ashling Murphy (PA) (PA Archive)

A woman has told a Dublin court that she felt a man on a bike was following her in a Co Offaly town on the day of Ashling Murphy’s death.

Ms Murphy, 23, was killed while out exercising along a canal path in Tullamore, Co Offaly, at about 3.30pm on January 12 last year.

Jozef Puska, 33, of Lynally Grove in Mucklagh, Tullamore, has pleaded not guilty to the teacher’s murder.

On the fifth day of the trial at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin, evidence was heard from two local women who confirmed they are seen on CCTV footage walking hours before Ms Murphy’s death.

Jurors also heard two witnesses give evidence that they saw a man dressed in dark clothing walking along a road in Tullamore that evening.

Paramedics also described treating a man in Dublin for three stab wounds the morning after Ms Murphy’s death.

Ann Marie Kelly told the court that she was out walking her dog in Tullamore on the afternoon of January 12 when she noticed a man cycling in the same direction as her, near the McDonald’s in the town.

Ms Kelly said she felt someone was very close to her, turned around and saw a man cycling closely behind her.

She told the court the man made her feel “uncomfortable”, and she stepped aside twice to let him pass, and the second time he did.

“He looked back and stared at me for what felt like a few minutes, but it was a few seconds I’m sure,” she told the court.

Barrister for the defence, Michael Bowman SC, said Jozef Puska “certainly wasn’t following you”.

Mr Bowman told the court that Puska recollects passing Ms Kelly, and said he did not intend to stare.

Ms Kelly told the court that after the man passed her, she walked towards the canal walkway and came across him again.

She told the court it was “definitely” the same man she had noticed at the McDonald’s earlier.

She said she went down the grassy side of the canal walkway because she was “nervous of the man” and thought he would not be able to go down the grassier side on his bike.

Ms Kelly said she then noticed him walking behind her with the bike and he was “maybe a few metres behind me”.

She said at one point he was “right behind me”, describing the distance to the court as “a foot”.

She said she considered crossing over to the other side of the canal at Boland’s Lock because “I just wanted to get away from the man at that point”.

Ms Kelly confirmed to the court that she had never seen the CCTV before viewing it in court on Monday.

Local woman Beata Borowska confirmed that she is the woman wearing a “dark red jacket” on Church Road in CCTV footage from the afternoon of January 12.

She told the court she had no awareness of anyone behind her on that day.

Niamh Arthur, who grew up in Tullamore, told the court said she was leaving her place of work at about 8.30pm on the day Ms Murphy was killed.

She said she and her boyfriend Jamie, who was driving, were travelling home to Kilbeggan in Co Westmeath via the N52 when she saw a man in dark clothing on the edge of the road.

She said she got a fright because he was wearing dark clothing on a dark road on a dark night, so he was almost “invisible”.

She told the court he appeared to be crouching towards the verge or bollard and was “really acting weird”.

She said her boyfriend is a driving instructor, and “he didn’t see him at all”.

She said she thought he might have been kicked out of a car, and that was how he ended up “in the middle of a main road with nothing around him”.

“We locked eyes, yes. He looked shocked, he looked lost,” she said.

She told the court the car was moving at the time, but she would describe him as of medium height, in his mid-30s and with tanned skin.

Asked whether she had seen people walking along that route, Ms Arthur said that sometimes you would see builders walking along, but never in the dark and never in dark clothing at night.

Roy Jennings told the court he left his home in Tullamore at 8.20pm on January 12 and drove to the car park near the canal.

He said that as he then drove on, and as he turned off a roundabout, “out of nowhere” a man appeared on the left hand side of the road.

“At that particular time it was so dark, I just knew it was dark clothing,” he said when asked to describe him.

He said a few yards up the road he came across the same individual walking in the direction of Tesco, after he had appeared to cross the road.

He agreed that when he saw him the first time, he was approaching the man from behind, and the second time he was facing him.

He told the court that on second viewing, the tracksuit bottoms stood out to him as they were “dirty looking”, and that the man looked “roughed up, as if he was rolling in grass or muck”.

He said the tracksuit bottoms were black with a cream or white stripe down the side of the leg, and that the man had a dark beard and a “Middle Eastern appearance”.

He said he did not initially contact gardai as they had someone in custody, but after seeing a CCTV image of a suspect two days later, he saw the white stripe along the bottoms which stood out to him.

“It just looked very similar to the person I saw that night, that’s when I contacted gardai.”

During the first week of the trial the jury were shown maps of scenes of interest and a montage of some clips of the 25,000 hours of footage gathered by gardai.

They also heard from witnesses who were walking along the canal and emergency services who tried to save Ms Murphy’s life.