A man has been found guilty after an attack which left a man with seventeen stab wounds following a row in a Letterkenny apartment.
The Dublin man was found guilty of “intentionally and recklessly” stabbing an Inishowen man during the row on the town’s main street ten years ago.
Kenneth Broe was also found guilty of assault causing harm in the incident which resulted in the injured party spending two weeks in intensive care in hospital and receiving two “life-saving operations” after he suffered wounds to the neck, chest, head and back areas.
The jury took an hour and six minutes to unanimously find the accused guilty on the lesser charge of section 3 assault after a six-day trial at Letterkenny Circuit Court.
For the more serious charge, Judge John Aylmer advised the jury they could record a majority verdict following the suitable legal time lapse and after a further forty-six minutes, Broe, of 15 Alderwood Green, Springfield, Tallaght, was found guilty on the charge of intentionally and recklessly carrying out the attack.
The injured party, Kristian Shortt, had told the court in his evidence that after drinking in a number of venues in the town, he and the accused had gone to the flat of Damian O’Connor above Victor Fisher’s shop at Upper Main Street in the early hours of October 9th, 2008.
Witness and the accused had got into an argument and had threatened one another.
He, Mr Shortt, recalled a knife having been produced before he was stabbed repeatedly. The accused had used all his power and force during the attack, he claimed.
Broe had been arrested in Monaghan after he and a friend had taken a taxi to Dublin on the day after the assault.
A medical report indicated that the injured party had been stabbed a total of seventeen times – three or four times in the neck, three in the back of the head, three in the chest and also wounded in the hands and back area.
He had been taken to Letterkenny General Hospital before being transferred to St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin where he had spent two weeks in intensive care. He had undergone two life-saving operations.
A previous trial involving the case had collapsed on the second day of evidence at Letterkenny Circuit Court.
Following the verdict delivered at last Thursday’s sitting of the Circuit Court, Judge Aylmer remanded Broe in custody to the July session of the court.
The Judge agreed to direct the production of a number of reports including a Probation Report on behalf of the accused.