Hitchhiker ‘wanted to butcher a cow’

October 2001

A 41-year-old Enniscorthy man who was carrying a 20-inch knife as he tried to hitch a lift was planning on butchering a cow and selling it, a special sitting of Carlow District Court heard last Thursday.

The claim was made in the case of [NAME WITHHELD], who was charged with possessing the knife and with being intoxicated to such an extent to be a danger to himself or others at Chapelstown on the Wexford Road on October 8.

Garda Conor Egan said that he responded to a call about a drunk man in Chapelstown and found the defendant attempting to hitch a lift.

He said that [DEFENDANT] was extremely drunk at the time.

‘As I spoke to him, he literally fell over onto the ground,’ Garda Egan recalled.

He also said that when he asked the defendant if he had anything in his possession, the man took a knife from the lining of his pocket and gave it to him.

‘He didn’t have a good reason for having the knife,’ the Garda added.

Defence solicitor Breda Fleming said that her client had been drinking in Carlow and was unsure where he had acquired the knife.

‘He said that he got it when he went in the back door of a Chinese restaurant or a butcher’s shop,’ she said.

She added that [DEFENDANT] had spent a number of years in a psychiatric hospital and had planned to use the knife to butcher a cow and sell it.

Judge John Coughlan remanded the defendant in custody to New Ross District Court today.