A jury will return to the Central Criminal Court on Friday to continue their deliberations in the trial of a man who denies murdering his mother by strangling and smothering her to death.
Nigel Canavan (39) told his trial he acted in self-defence and was provoked by his mother, Angela Canavan (58), who he said told him she wished she’d never had him while assaulting him during a heated argument.
The jury has spent more than four hours over two days considering their verdict. Mr Canavan, with an address at Erris Gardens, Crossmolina, Co Mayo, has pleaded not guilty to his mother’s murder at her home in St John’s Terrace, Co Sligo on May 1st, 2023.
Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo has told the jury of 10 women and two men there are three possible verdicts: guilty, not guilty, or not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.
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Mr Justice Naidoo said murder is made out if the prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused killed his mother and intended to kill or cause serious harm.
However, the jury should return a verdict of manslaughter if they find that Ms Canavan’s actions towards her son were a “genuinely serious provocation” that caused him to suffer a sudden and total loss of self-control.
Mr Justice Naidoo said the jury must also consider whether Mr Canavan had acted in self-defence. In his testimony to the trial, Mr Canavan said his mother waved a knife at him and tried to attack him with her hands and feet.
State Pathologist Dr SallyAnne Collis detailed bruises to Ms Canavan’s face, neck, torso, arms and legs. She also noted a laceration due to blunt force trauma on her head and one of her forearms. She had three fractured ribs and stab wounds to each thigh.
Dr Collis said the cause of death was asphyxiation due to smothering and strangling, and that death would have taken minutes.
Mr Canavan said that his mother stabbed herself in the thighs with a steak knife and suggested the fractured ribs could have been caused by a fall his mother had earlier in the week of her death. He described using his forearm against his mother’s neck to push her away and said that she died in his presence.
