Drunk and on the floor before NSW 'murder'
Half an hour before raining fatal blows upon a homeless man, two drunk Irishmen were splayed on the floor of a Sydney train station.
A NSW Supreme Court jury this week viewed the CCTV images of Nathan Kelly and Christopher McLaughlin as the intoxicated pair slowly moved through Summer Hill railway station just before midnight on December 29, 2018.
By 12.30am, the housemates were allegedly fatally bashing 66-year-old Paul Tavelardis in nearby Grosvenor Street.
Both men have pleaded not guilty to murder.
Their barristers argue neither formed an intent to kill or inflict serious harm and have suggested Mr Tavelardis made the first move.
The court has heard both Irishmen had spent the previous afternoon and evening drinking, beginning at the pool of their unit complex on Grosvenor St.
Come nightfall, they and some neighbours made their way to the local pub on the other side of the train tracks.
An intoxicated Kelly, 23, co-operated when asked to leave about 10.55pm, while McLaughlin, 25, was taken home about 11pm after one of the neighbours noticed he was "very drunk".
"If that was in my place of work, I would have had him removed from the premises long before he got to that stage of intoxication," neighbour Lucy Lovett told the court.
But after McLaughlin was unable to enter his unit, he met up with Kelly at the station at 11.50pm.
Within a minute, the pair lay prone on the station floor - Kelly's arms stretched above his head and his face on the pavement and McLaughlin under a hand railing and at times, without shoes.
The court has heard allegations Kelly and McLaughlin were later seen in a Toyota Corolla travelling around Summer Hill before the car was parked close to the station wagon Mr Tavelardis called home about 12.30am.
The jury on Tuesday viewed Kelly's police interview the day of the incident in which he recalls finding Mr Tavelardis breaking into McLaughlin's ute.
Kelly said the homeless man ran when confronted and then ran at the men with a weapon.
"I could not understand what he was saying ... he swung the pipe and it hit me in the back."
In the taped interview, Kelly can be seen lifting his shirt to show a welt across the middle right of his back.
"I punched him straight on, he stumbled back," he said, later saying he punched the older man "maybe five times".
After dropping the pipe and falling to the ground, Mr Taverlardis began apologising, Kelly said.
The Irishman denied ever kicking or elbowing the man, contrary to prosecutors' allegations.
"He wasn't touched when he was on the ground ... hundred per cent."
Kelly also described the incident as "stupidity" and said he could have called the police and could have handled it a bit better".
The trial continues.
