Let me give few ideas that might help, although I do not have a complete proof (yet).
Suppose that $G$ has intersecting odd cycles and that $G$ has no $K_5$ as subgraph. We shall prove that $\chi(G)\leq 4$.
Let us suppose that $G$ contains no triangle. Let $C$ be the smallest odd cycle of $G$ (which has at least five vertices). $G-C$ is bipartite with parts $A$ and $B$. Note that every vertex of $A\cup B$ has at most two neighbors in $C$, because $G$ has no triangles and $C$ is a minimum odd cycle of $G$ (having at least three neighbors in $C$, imply on two neighbors at distance at least four in $C$, since $G$ has no triangles, and thus on a smaller odd cycle). Consequently, one can extend a coloring of $C$ with colors 1,2 and 3, to a coloring of $G$ by coloring the whole set $A$ with color 4 and coloring each vertex of $B$ with a color in the set ${1,2,3}$ that does not appear in its neighborhood in $C$.
The problem is then how to solve the case when $G$ has a triangle $C$? I do not know yet how to extend a 3-coloring of the triangle to a 4-coloring of $G$. Of course, the hypothesis of having intersecting odd cycles and having no $K_5$ as subgraph are important now.
For instance, one can prove that if $G-C$ has parts $A$ and $B$ and $A_i$ (resp. $B_i$) corresponds to the set of vertices in $A$ (resp. $B$) with exactly $i$ neighbors in $C$, for every $i\in\{0,\ldots,3\}$, then $A_3\neq \emptyset$ and $B_3\neq\emptyset$, as otherwise it is possible to find a 4-coloring of $G$ by a similar argument as in the previous case. Supposing that $A_3$ and $B_3$ are both non-empty lead us to deduce that $A_3\cup A_2\cup B_3 \cup B_2$ is an independent set, as otherwise one may find a $K_5$ or two disjoint triangles. Since we do not have two disjoint triangles, $A_3\cup B_1$ and $B_3\cup A_1$ are also independent sets. Moreover, there is no edge $a_1b_1$ such that $a_1\in A_1$, $b_1\in B_1$ and $a_1$ and $b_1$ have the same neighbor in $C$.
Yet, I cannot color $G$. The vertices with no neighbor in $C$ are an issue.
You are right, if $\Delta(G)>2$ and all cycles of $G$ are odd then $\chi'(G)=\Delta(G)$.
You can prove this by induction on the number of cycles in $G$. We my assume $G$ is connected, since if it is true for every connected graph we can just colour components separately.
If $G$ has no cycles then it is a tree. Root it at any vertex, and colour edges one by one in order of distance from the root. We can do this using a greedy algorithm with $\Delta$ colours: when we colour an edge, the only incident edges we have previously coloured all meet it at the same endpoint, so there are at most $\Delta-1$ forbidden colours.
If there is exactly one cycle, then we can do the same thing. First, colour the cycle with $3\leq \Delta$ colours. Now colour the other edges in order of distance from the cycle; the same argument works.
If there are two or more cycles, choose two and call them $C_1,C_2$. If they have a vertex $v$ in common, note that there can be no path between the cycles that does not go through $v$, since if there is such a path $P$ we could construct a cycle by going along $P$, round $C_2$ to $v$, and round $C_1$ to the start of $P$. Since both cycles are odd, and we can choose which direction to go round them, we can make this new cycle of either parity, a contradiction. Thus $v$ is a cutvertex, and we can find two graphs $G_1,G_2$, with no common edges and no common vertices other than $v$, such that $G$ is obtained by gluing $G_1$ and $G_2$ together at $v$, and each containing one of the cycles. By induction, we can define two colourings $c_1,c_2$ of $G_1,G_2$ respectively, each with colours from $\{1,...,\Delta(G)\}$. Since $\Delta(G)\geq d_G(v)$ we can reorder the colours for $c_2$, if necessary, so that the set of colours used at $v$ by $c_2$ is disjoint from those used at $v$ by $c_1$.
If $C_1,C_2$ do not have a vertex in common, then by a similar argument there cannot be two vertex-disjoint paths between them (otherwise there would be cycles of either parity using these paths and part of $C_1,C_2$). This means, via Menger's theorem, that there is a single vertex $v$ such that all paths between them go through $v$, and now you can do the same thing.
Best Answer
There are two key observations to make: First, the hypothesis is that each pair of odd cycles share a vertex. This includes the pair $C,K$ for every $K$ an odd cycle in $G$. Hence when we remove $C$ from $G$, each odd cycle loses a vertex, and this is where the second key observation comes in: cutting a vertex from a cycle leaves a path, and paths are no obstruction to being bipartite.