Charity worker pushed off pier to her death by total stranger ‘for fun’
A YOUNG charity worker died after a stranger pushed her off a pier for ‘a bit of fun’.
Charmaine O’Donnell, 25, suffered severe neck injuries and drowned after being shoved over the railings and into the water by Jacob Foster.
The 29-year- old – who has a string of convictions including for assault – had been accused of the charity worker’s murder in April last year.
But he was found guilty of a lesser charge of culpable homicide yesterday following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow.
The killer had lodged a defence of diminished responsibility, claiming he ‘got it wrong’ due to having learning difficulties.
After the verdict, Miss O’Donnell’s family said it had been ‘the most difficult time we have ever had to face’.
Miss O’Donnell, from Glasgow, had been on a day out to the coastal town of Helensburgh in Argyll and Bute, west Scotland, with her friend Caitlin McTaggart.
The women arrived at Helensburgh Pier and got chatting to three men who were fishing. Foster and another man were nearby and tried to engage the women in conversation. Miss McTaggart, 25, said the next thing she knew there was a ‘commotion’ about someone being thrown over the railings.
She did not initially know who it was, but one witness shouted to her: ‘That’s your pal.’ Miss McTaggart said she then saw her friend in the water and Foster on the pier.
She confronted Foster, telling jurors: ‘I was screaming at him to help her.
‘He just kept saying: “What have I done? I have taken it too far this time. I am going away for a long time”.’
Paramedics and police arrived quickly but Miss O’Donnell – an assistant manager at a British Heart Foundation shop – could not be saved. Stephen Cairns, 42, one of the men fishing that day, told the trial he remembered Foster shoving Miss O’Donnell over the edge. He said: ‘It was just carnage after that.’
PC Gary Davidson, who spoke to Foster at the pier, said: ‘He said that it was an accident. He said, “I just pushed her. It was just a bit of fun”.’ Foster’s lawyers had claimed – due to his mental health issues – he had misunderstood an alleged remark Miss O’Donnell made about going into the water.
But prosecutor Alex Prentice said there was ‘overwhelming’ evidence Foster pushed Miss O’Donnell, saying it was ‘deliberate conduct’. A large group of the victim’s family and friends were at court yesterday and many sobbed with relief at the guilty verdict. A statement was released by her mother, Jacqueline Gallacher, 50, and step father William King, 54, afterwards, saying: ‘Losing Charmaine has changed our lives forever. We will never be the same again. Our hearts have been broken.
‘She had her whole life ahead of her. She had a great personality and sense of humour warming the hearts of all who met her.’ Foster is due to be sentenced next month.