Puska gets legal aid for an appeal
GRANTED A SENIOR COUNSEL IN BID TO FIGHT CONVICTION
JOZEF Puska has been granted legal aid to appeal his conviction for murdering school teacher Ashling Murphy.
His case was one of 20 applications for legal aid before the Court of Appeal yesterday morning.
Mr Justice George Birmingham granted legal aid in all cases. Puska will be entitled to the same legal representation he had for his trial at the Central
Criminal Court - a solicitor, senior counsel and two junior counsel.
During his trial, the jury heard Puska told detectives he stopped working in 2017 after slipping a disk in his back.
Prior to a jury being sworn to hear Puska’s trial last year, his lawyers made a number of objections to the evidence the prosecution intended to call.
The defence argued the jury should not hear Puska’s confession to gardai two days after the stabbing.
Form
They said Puska was suffering the effects of abdominal surgery and under the influence of the painkiller oxycodone and that his confession was therefore involuntary.
They also objected to the prosecution showing CCTV footage of Puska stalking two women in Tullamore town centre before heading to the canal, where he came upon Ashling Murphy, walking alone. The trial judge’s decisions to allow those and other pieces of evidence to go before the jury are likely to form the bases for Puska’s appeal.
Puska (33), with an address at Lynally Grove, Mucklagh, Co Offaly, had pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Murphy at Cappincur, Tullamore, Co Offaly on January 12, 2022.
A jury convicted him by a unanimous verdict following a trial last year.
Slashed
The jury found that Puska stabbed Ms Murphy eleven times in the neck and slashed her once with the edge of a blade before leaving her to die in the thick thorns and brambles by the side of the canal towpath between Tullamore town and Digby Bridge. A monument now stands where she died.
Puska was placed at the scene by the presence of his 4 green and black bicycle a few feet from Ms Murphy’s body.
He had been captured on CCTV cycling the same bicycle around Tullamore earlier that afternoon, stalking two women before heading towards the canal.
Puska’s DNA was found on the bike as was his fingerprint and his DNA was under Ms Murphy’s fingernails.