Accused ‘said he hit victim over refusal to give money’

A MAN accused of murdering a 90-year-old farmer rang a relative’s partner and told her that he had hit the pensioner because the elderly man would not give him money, a jury has heard.

Ross Outram, 28, is on trial charged with murdering Paddy Lyons in Co. Waterford nearly two years ago.

Giving evidence yesterday, Sandra Walsh told John O’Kelly SC, prosecuting, she lives in Carrick-on-Suir in Co. Tipperary, and that her partner Gary O’Brien is Mr Outram’s uncle. Ms Walsh said she had received a phone call from Mr Outram on February 26, 2017, in which he asked her if she had seen ‘about the man’ on the news.

She said he called her back later, and told her: ‘I hit the man because he wouldn’t give me money.’

She said she asked the accused if this was the man who had died in Waterford, and he said it was.

Mr Outram mentioned to Ms Walsh ‘about going on a boat to the UK’ and asked her if she would bring him to the boat in Rosslare, she said, adding that she did not reply. Ms Walsh told the court she later rang a sergeant stationed in Clonmel to report what Mr Outram had told her.

Ms Walsh said she went to Mr Outram’s house the next day and that he asked her to bring him into town to get something to eat. Ms Walsh was driving with Mr Outram when her car was stopped by gardaí and he was arrested, she said.

Michael O’Higgins SC, defending, told the court Mr Outram’s mother had reacted badly to her own mother’s death and ‘took to the drink’. He put it to Ms Walsh that Mr Outram was concerned Mr Lyons was giving his mother money which ‘she used to take drink’. Ms Walsh said she did not know anything about this.

Mr Outram, of Ferryland, Waterford Road, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, denies murdering the retired farmer at Loughleagh, Ballysaggart, Lismore, between February 23 and 26, 2017. The Central Criminal Court trial continues.