Woman who killed her partner loved him ‘dearly’
AN IRISH woman who killed her fiancé in Sydney told a judge she did not leave the “controlling and fairly unpleasant” man as she loved him dearly.
“I honestly thought he was going to change,” said Cathrina ‘Tina’ Cahill at her sentence hearing in the NSW Supreme Court. “He was someone I did love and adore.”
The 27-year-old has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of David Walsh (29) who she stabbed once in the neck in the early hours of February 18, 2017, at the Padstow home they shared with two other Irish nationals. Her plea was based on substantial impairment due to an abnormality of the mind.
At the time, she was on a good behaviour bond and the subject of an apprehended violence order issued to protect Mr Walsh, after she was convicted of recklessly wounding him with a glass candle holder in 2015.
Cahill previously gave evidence about his repeated violence, including punching strangers and biting her, his accusations of her sleeping with other men, and deleting texts from her phone.
The court heard she had packed her bags many times, but Mr Walsh would tell her things would be different.
“He would be making me dinner, buying me flowers, buying me a teddy bear but after two to three weeks it would go back to the way it was.”
She agreed with Justice Peter Johnson that her evidence revealed a “pretty stormy relationship” and that Mr Walsh might be seen to be a “controlling and fairly unpleasant person”. But she said she stayed with him as “I loved him very dearly”.
The fatal attack occurred when an intoxicated Mr Walsh launched an unprovoked attack on a man invited into the home by Cahill and the two other female housemates.
Cahill, who also had been drinking, was punched by her fiancé when trying to stop the attack, before she took out a “large, very sharp, bladed knife” and stabbed him.
Justice Johnson will sentence Cahill on December 12.