Man accused of killing a dad at birthday party
AMAN has gone on trial accused of killing a dad who collapsed and died in front of family and friends at his 65th birthday party.
Anthony Reilly, 54, denies the manslaughter of Jimmy Feeney, who was taken ill after trouble started in the snug bar of the Reed Hotel at Reed Hill, Rochdale.
The pensioner was celebrating with relatives on May 1 last year.
A jury at Manchester Crown Court was told Mr Reilly ‘lashed out’ at Mr Feeney after punching Mr Feeney’s adult son, Mark.
Mr Reilly was bundled from the room by partygoers, and Mr Feeney, who had got in between Mr Reilly and his son, sat back down.
Within minutes Mr Feeney, who had a preexisting heart condition, collapsed. Attempts to revive him with CPR failed, the court heard.
CCTV captured the turn of events. In footage shown to the jury, guests were seen socialising and swaying to music in a room decorated with ‘Happy Birthday’ banners and illuminated by a disco strobe light.
Mr Feeney turned 65 on April 28, and had returned from a trip to Dublin for the party. CCTV showed his son Mark leaning over and talking into his ear seconds before trouble began.
Giving evidence in court, Mr Feeney said of the night: “There was no problems whatsoever, it was a karaoke night so everyone gets up to have a sing-song, so I get up to sing a song for my father.
“It’s an Irish song. I leaned over to my father and ‘I love you and I’m singing this song for you Dad’, and as I was leaning over I was approached from the side by Tony Reilly. He tapped me on the shoulder, I stood up, turned round and there was a bit of an altercation between us.
“I’m not really clear what he said because it was loud, but he was a bit aggressive and out of the blue he just punched me.
“I stumbled back towards the fireplace and my father was stood left of me and my father jumped up obviously to get in between me and Tony Reilly.”
Cross-examined by Richard Littler, defending, Mr Feeney said two weeks before that incident he had punched Anthony Reilly for behaving inappropriately towards his wife.
“We had a few words, we went outside, as Travellers do, or Irish people, we have ‘straighteners’,” Mark Feeney said of the earlier occasion.
Despite the earlier incident, Mr Feeney said it was ‘shock’ when he was punched by Mr Reilly.
Describing what happened later, he said: “I was arrested outside the public house. The night my dad died police arrested me... I was hysterical, because my dad was on the floor of that public house.”
Pathologist Dr Naomi Carter told jurors that Mr Feeney had a number of pre-existing conditions, including ‘furry arteries’, an enlarged heart and the lung condition Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder.
She told jurors that in this context, a ‘stressful episode would create a severe risk of abnormal episode to the heart’.
Mr Littler asked Dr Carter if she could be sure it was the punch Mr Reilly had allegedly thrown at Mr Feeney that had triggered his collapse.
Dr Carter accepted that ‘fatigue’ and the ‘emotion’ of his 65th birthday could have placed ‘stress’ on his heart.
Mr Reilly, of Prince Street, Rochdale, denies manslaughter.
●●The trial continues.