'I was too drunk to remember what happened' (From Oxford Mail)

'I was too drunk to remember what happened'

10:00am Friday 5th October 2012 in News

THE teenager accused of murdering musician Aaron Buron yesterday told a jury he could not remember what happened because he was “extremely drunk.”

Haydan O’Callaghan, of Saunders Road, East Oxford, was giving evidence at Oxford Crown Court when he said he could not recall stabbing Mr Buron but accepted he was responsible for his death.

The 18-year-old admits manslaughter but denies murdering the 29-year-old in St Martin’s Road, Rose Hill, on March 31.

A forensic scientist who took a sample of O’Callaghan’s blood the following morning estimated he would have been more than three times the drink drive limit at 11.20pm – the time Mr Buron was stabbed.

O’Callaghan also admitted lying to the police in his first statement.

He denied stabbing Mr Buron, and then calling a friend 10 days after the incident and confessing to killing him, claiming he was “upset”.

When asked by Michael Bromley-Martin, defending, if he was upset for himself or someone else, he said: “Someone else. The fact that I have taken someone’s life away.”

O’Callaghan said he drunk 10 pints of beer and 15 whisky and cokes at The George pub in Littlemore before leaving with his girlfriend Latasha Peck for the house of Lisa Harris, Mr Buron’s girlfriend, at about 9pm on March 31.

He bought two bottles of whisky before drinking three quarters of a bottle at the house in St Martin’s Road, the jury heard.

It is the prosecution case O’Callaghan attacked Miss Peck at the house and Mr Buron was then stabbed to death when he tried to intervene.

O’Callaghan said he could not remember attacking his girlfriend, but he recalled: “They (the group at the house) said ‘get off of her’.

“I think I was helping her up.”

He remembers getting a knife from the kitchen and tripping over a bicycle outside the house.

The next thing he remembers clearly is Miss Peck getting into a taxi.

But Ian Acheson, prosecuting, said: “You had decided that Aaron had stuck his nose in where it wasn’t wanted and you were going to make him pay.

“The reality was, sir, that when you earlier in the evening spoke out you meant it – ‘Someone is going to die tonight.’”

O’Callaghan replied: “I don’t remember saying it, but I accept I said it.”

In his closing speech, Mr Acheson said: “This was a heated, intentional execution of revenge on Aaron Buron who had stepped in his domestic affairs.

“Sadly as was said on more than one occasion that evening: ‘Someone had to die that night’ and sadly for him it was Aaron Buron who was murdered.”

Referring to O’Callaghan, Mr Bromley-Martin, defending, said: “He was very drunk indeed. Probably about as drunk as you can get, I would suggest.

“He got so drunk that he had no idea what he was doing. He was incapable of even holding himself from the floor when he tripped.”

Summing up in the trial is due to take place today and the jury will then be sent out to consider its verdict.