Jenna Stack told the trial of Mr Puska, who is accused of the murder of Ashling Murphy, how she saw Ms Murphy 'kicking so hard' and said it appeared as though she was 'crying out for help'
A woman has told the trial of Jozef Puska how she saw him on top of Ashling Murphy and thought he was going to rape her - before he shouted at her to “get away.”
Ms Stack told the court today how she and her friend Aoife were out for a 7km run by the canal - when they noticed a bicycle lying in the bushes - and then heard “rustling.” “We only went another couple of feet when we heard a lot of rustling in the hedgerow. It was quite distinctive,” Ms Stack told the court.
"I was just facing his back. When he turned he kind of disturbed the hedge. I could see his face clearly. I couldn't see his hands because he was holding someone down.” “He said something else at the time but I couldn't remember what it was. There was a second person underneath him. I saw from kind of halfway down her thighs.”
Ms Stack said that at this point the man “kind of lunged” “as if to frighten us.” Ms Stack told the court that in fact she did not have her phone on her at the time - and that they then ran as fast as they could to get help. Ms Stack went to another house where a woman named Emma Doyle came to the door. "I told Emma what had happened. She said she had been on the canal and seen a guy that sounded like the guy I told her about,” Ms Stack said.
In cross examination Jozef Puska’s defence barrister Michael Bowman SC put it to the witness that his client was in fact helping Ms Murphy at the time.
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