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AN IRISH national who stabbed her fiance to death in their Sydney home had a previous conviction for violence involving him, a court has heard.
Cathrina “Tina” Cahill’s sentencing hearing was underway in the New South Wales Supreme Court this morning after the 27-year-old pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of David Walsh.
Mr Walsh, 29, also from Ireland, died from a neck wound sustained at the couple’s home in Padstow, southwestern Sydney, after a night out on February 17 last year.
The father-of-three girls, who reside in his homeland, was pronounced dead at the scene after emergency services were called to the house on Watson Road. Mr Walsh and Cahill had become engaged just over a month earlier, on New Year’s Eve.
Justice Peter Johnson this morning noted that Cahill was convicted of reckless wounding in an incident involving Mr Walsh, and placed on a two-year-bond, at Waverley Local Court, in April 2016.
The court last week heard that Cahill was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder when she fatally stabbed her fiance. She was due to face an eight-week murder trial in the NSW Supreme Court until the charge was downgraded from murder and she pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Cahill admitted unlawfully killing Mr Walsh — who was also from County Wexford in southeastern Ireland — between February 17 and 18 in 2017.
Prosecutor Nanette Williams said the Crown accepted the plea to the less serious offence on the basis that Cahill was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder at the time.
Her barrister, James Trevallion, said the substantial abnormality of mind was caused by Mr Walsh’s conduct towards his client, submitting that the judge needed to be aware of the “extent of the provocation and controlling behaviour by the deceased” in the days and weeks leading up to his death.
The court previously heard that the couple’s relationship was “violent” and “degrading” and that Mr Walsh often abused Cahill.
The pair’s two housemates, who are now back in Ireland, were also witnesses to events on February 17 at the Cock’N’Bull Hotel in Bondi, the Doncaster Hotel in Kensington and at their Padstow address, Mr Trevallion said.
Mr Trevallion last week said after the hearing that Cahill was “doing OK”.
“Her mother and father are over here from Ireland supporting her,” he said.
Irish newspapers have previously reported Mr Walsh had fled the country after being charged with badaulting his former partner, three Irish police officers and a man whose ear was partially bitten off.
The couple left Ireland in 2013 to live in Australia. Mr Walsh worked in construction and was employed with a traffic management company prior to his death.
The hearing continues.
— With AAP
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