Stab accused told officers ‘it was either him or me’
Graham Mckeever A COURT has heard a man accused of killing his partner’s lover after catching her cheating told gardai: “It was either him or me that was getting stabbed.”
Keith Connorton, 40, said he managed to turn a knife around and stab 32-year-old Graham Mckeever at the accused’s home in Dublin on February 18, 2017.
Connorton has denied murdering Mr Mckeever and is on trial at the Central Criminal Court.
Defence counsel Michael O’higgins was cross-examining the accused man’s partner Claire Mcgrath.
Mr O’higgins showed Ms Mcgrath and the jury a video of an interview given by the accused to gardai following his arrest on February 20, 2017.
In it Connorton told detectives Mr Mckeever came at him but that he managed to turn the knife around and stab him “a couple of times”.
Ms Mcgrath accepted this account differed from the one she gave last week and to statements to gardai after the incident.
She said she was on painkillers and Xanax when she gave her statements and her account is not reliable adding it is possible Connorton’s account is more reliable than her own.
The trial continues. Tom, Eric and Luca Mcgrath in Dublin yesterday Cpl Tom Mcgrath were horrendous. The food rations were abysmal.
“They suffered with lice and were working 12 hours a day. It was a very tough existence and what he went through for that year when he was on his own, where he had uncertainty every day he got out of bed, he didn’t know who he was going to meet or what he was going to face.
“What is consistent with all these stories I have read about is they didn’t want to talk about their experience or relive it. That, compounded with the fact he lived in a small town in southern Ireland in the 1950s and 60s.”
Tom Jnr was given the three awards – the Military Medal, the 1939-1945 Star and the War Medal – at a ceremony at the British ambassador’s residence in Dublin yesterday.
He added: “We are so proud and think he would be proud too.”
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