An interpreter has told the Central Criminal Court that the man accused of the murder of schoolteacher Ashling Murphy asked him to translate his confession to gardaí, two days after she was killed.
Miroslav Sedlacek was giving evidence at the trial of 33-year-old Jozef Puska who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ms Murphy in January 2022.
Miroslav Sedlacek is originally from the Czech Republic and provides translation services in German, Czech and Slovak.
On 14 January 2022, he provided translation services in Slovak twice to gardaí in St James' Hospital in Dublin, on a phone line.
He told the court the second conversation took place at around 6pm on that evening, and lasted around 20 minutes.
He said the conversation began with gardaí telling Jozef Puska about the search warrant they had and explaining that his personal belongings would have to be seized for an investigation into a murder in Tullamore.
He told the court Mr Puska wanted to know how this was related to him and wanted to know if he was a suspect. Mr Sedlacek said gardaí told him he was a person of interest and explained what this meant.
Mr Sedlacek said he remembered very well what followed after this. He said it was at this point that Mr Puska asked him personally to translate his confession.
He said Mr Puska asked him to translate accurately and exactly what he was saying. He said Mr Puska told him to tell the gardaí that he did it, that he killed her and that he did not do it intentionally.
Mr Sedlacek said this was still between him and Mr Puska before he had the chance to translate – it was quite spontaneous he said, everything came quickly.
He said Mr Puska said he did not want to do it, that he was very sorry that he did it and that it happened. Mr Sedlacek said he translated to gardaí word for word and gardaí cautioned Mr Puska. He said he translated the caution and Mr Puska said he understood.
Mr Sedlacek said Mr Puska then started asking some questions.
He said Mr Puska was very concerned about the safety of his family. His first concern was whether or not his family members’ names would go public. Gardaí said his own name would go public.
He also asked if there was any possibility the girl’s family would like to take any revenge on his own family for what he had done to her. He said gardaí explained Ms Murphy’s family would certainly not take revenge on his family.
Mr Sedlacek said Mr Puska’s voice was very different from the first conversation he had with him earlier on the same day. He said he was quite emotional and his voice was trembling, adding his sentences were quite disjointed. He said he supposed this was as a result of the situation he was in.
He said Mr Puska wanted to stress that he did not do anything intentionally.
He said the garda then told him that Mr Puska was not feeling well and they would have to end the call.
He said Mr Puska asked what would happen next and the garda explained that when he recovered he would be brought to Tullamore garda station and would be interviewed there.
Mr Sedlacek said he would describe Mr Puska as being in very low spirits after the confession. "I would even say desperate," he told the court.
Earlier, the site nurse manager at St James’ Hospital, Roz Gillen, told the court she had been approached by Detective Sergeant Pamela Nugent on the evening of 14 January. The garda had a copy of a search warrant and Ms Gillen decided to move Mr Puska to a single room.
Under cross examination from defence counsel Michael Bowman, Ms Gillen said there was never any request by gardaí to speak to a treating doctor. She was not asked to refer to his medical notes and had no understanding of Mr Puska’s state of mind or medical circumstances.
She agreed she had no function in determining the fitness of someone to deal with gardaí.
Asked if a request to deal with a treating doctor could have been accommodated, she said she did not know if a doctor would have been there as it was a Friday evening.
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