He put out cigarettes on my body, bit me and called me a slut..
AN Irish woman who killed her fiance has told how he used to bite her, put out cigarettes on her body and repeatedly call her a “slut”.
Tina Cahill appeared in New South Wales Supreme Court yesterday to give evidence at her sentence hearing after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of David Walsh.
The 27-year-old broke down crying several times as she spoke of her relationship with the victim who she stabbed to death in their Sydney home in February last year.
She said the 29-year-old construction worker used to scratch and bite her and would put out cigarettes on her body if he didn’t like what she was saying.
She added: “He’d grab my face, scratch my face and constantly bite me – that was his thing.”
When she confronted Mr Walsh about a distasteful photo he had taken on his phone of her while she was asleep, she said he laughed.
She added: “If I didn’t have sex with him, he was going to get it anyway.”
Cahill, from New Ross, Co Wexford, said she often woke up and found she was no longer wearing pyjamas which she had put on going to bed.
And she added she could not even look in the mirror when driving as there might be a male motorist nearby.
If she did, she said Mr Walsh would say: “I hope you got a good look, slut.”
Cahill added her fiance was convinced she was having an affair with her boss and often turned up at her workplace to check up on her.
On one occasion, he made a throat-slitting gesture when he saw she was alone at her office with a male colleague.
Cahill said he would bombard her with calls at work and told of an incident when she was working a night shift as a traffic controller and she spotted him sitting in a car watching.
She told how in the days leading up to his death, Mr Walsh accused her of having an affair with her brother-inlaw and was demanding she take a lie detector test to prove she wasn’t.
Cahill described one occasion she was out for a drink with a female friend when a man started talking to the other woman.
She added: “David came in and hit the guy so hard he landed on the floor.
“He said, ‘He won’t look at my missus again’.”
She also told how Mr Walsh used to take her phone at night, deleted numbers and blocked 35 people from her Facebook account.
He also deleted text messages from her family and threw out clothes which her mother sent to her “if he didn’t like them”.
Cahill admitted in court she was bingedrinking heavily and occasionally took cocaine during the relationship but said she reduced her alcohol consumption in July 2016.
She said she last did cocaine in
SYDNEY YESTERDAY
January 2017 – a few weeks before she stabbed the dad of four to death.
The court heard Mr Walsh bit Cahill’s face during a row before Valentine’s Day last year.
Afterwards he sent her flowers with the message: “To my Valentine, I know I can be a c*** but I can be a good c***. I’m Daniel Cahill outside court yesterday sorry about it all. Love Davey.” When asked how she felt about killing her fiance, Cahill said she wished she had a “time machine” and could go back and change what had happened.
She added: “There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think about David’s family and his three girls.
“If I had a time machine and could go back and it had a different result I would.
“That’s why I pleaded guilty to manslaughter and am doing my time.
“At the end of the day, David made my life hard but he was someone who I loved and adored.”
When asked why she stayed when the relationship was so abusive, she said: “I loved him so much.
“He told me no matter what I did I would never get away from him and if I ever got with anybody else he would make my life hell.”
Under cross-examination from prosecutor Nanette Williams, Cahill denied she lied about an incident in October 2015 because she knew the evidence was very “damning” about her going downstairs to get a knife Defendant’s mother Rita Cahill in Sydney yesterday
and then stab her partner in the head. Cahill said they had argued before he blocked her at their bedroom door while waving a knife.
She went to grab it, cut her hand and then ran after him and stabbed him in the back of his head.
She added: “I was angry Davey was trying to have sex with me and I didn’t want it.”
The hearing was adjourned until next Friday when cross-examination of Cahill will continue.
He told me no matter what I did I would never get away from him
TINA CAHILL