Accused ‘thought pair may be molesters’

A MAN on trial charged with murder said he poured boiling water over a disabled pensioner’s genitals and beat his elderly brother in bed because he thought that maybe they were child molesters as they lived together.

Alan Cawley, 30, is accused of murdering Thomas Blaine and John (Jack) Blaine in their Co. Mayo home. Sergeant Hugh O’Donnell testified yesterday that he interviewed Mr Cawley following his arrest.

The court heard Mr Cawley had been in the kitchen of the house with Jack Blaine. Mr Cawley said: ‘He was very clingy and he wouldn’t speak properly, so I asked, “What’s wrong? What are you looking for?” I felt the best idea was to show the man that men can’t always get what they want... that if I inflicted some pain, it would make up for everything in the past.’

He said he beat him with a stick before making his way to the front door. However, he said he saw another man in a bed at the front of the house. ‘I thought that if they were living together, maybe that the two of them were child molesters,’ he said.

He said he hit this man with a stick about 25 times before returning to the first man.

‘I thought it was a fitting punishment to put hot water on his genital area,’ he said. He said he did this after first waiting for a kettle to boil.

The court heard that State pathologist Marie Cassidy carried out post-mortems on the brothers. She testified that each had been the victim of a violent assault.

She said that ‘there appears to have been what pathologists call “overkill”, with numerous injuries, far more than necessary to subdue, overcome or kill a person’.

Mr Cawley, of Four Winds, Corrinbla, Ballina, Co. Mayo, admits killing the brothers but denies murdering them on July 10, 2013, at New Antrim Street in Castlebar. The Central Criminal Court trial continues.