A judge has begun charging a Central Criminal Court jury in the trial of law professor Diarmuid Phelan who has denied the murder of a trespasser on his Co Dublin farm.
Earlier, when concluding his closing address for Mr Phelan on Wednesday, Seán Guerin SC said the trial was about a man “facing imminent attack” by trespassers who had told him: “You’re f**ked” and they were going to get him.
They were “within a split second of doing just that” and Mr Phelan had reached for what was at hand, his revolver, counsel said. He fired three warning shots and was “stunned” when the third struck Keith Conlon.
Mr Phelan (56), a senior counsel and professor of law at Trinity College Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Conlon (36) at Hazlegrove farm, Kiltalown Lane, Tallaght, on February 24th 2022.
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Mr Conlon, a father of four, was pronounced brain-dead in hospital on February 24th, two days after he was shot at the farm.
Mr Conlon and two other men, Kallum Coleman and Robin Duggan, were using a lurcher dog to hunt down badgers and/or foxes when trespassing on the farm on February 22nd 2022.
After Mr Phelan, who was concerned about lambing ewes, shot the lurcher, there were heated exchanges with the trespassers and Mr Conlon and Mr Coleman followed him up a field.
The prosecution case was that two shots were fired into the air by Mr Phelan from his Smith & Wesson revolver and a third penetrated the body of Mr Conlon.
The prosecution says, that when the third shot was fired, Mr Conlon was shot in the back of the head as he turned away and, in the circumstances, Mr Phelan had the requisite intent for murder.
Mr Phelan denies any such intent and told gardaí in interviews that he believed, if he had not reacted immediately, “he would have got me” and he was “terrified”.
In his closing address, Mr Guerin said Mr Phelan had no time to prepare or to think as the two trespassers advanced on him and everything happened very quickly.
The time it took to discharge the third shot in reaction to what was happening could easily be longer than the time it took for Mr Conlon to turn his head, counsel said.
The prosecution case “depends entirely on one explanation for the shot going wrong”, aiming a shot intentionally in the direction of Mr Conlon.
Mr Phelan denied any such intention and had said he had fired shots into the air in an arc from left to right.
The shot that hit Mr Conlon was 6cm below his head and the jury had heard “rational, valid and uncontradicted” explanations why a shot could go wrong and the revolver could shoot lower than intended, he said.
Experts had given evidence that stressed the gun’s light weight, repeated firing of it in short sequence and finger placement could all explain a “very significant” change in the anticipated point of impact.
Mr Conlon also appeared to have been coming up an incline and in doing so, was “bringing himself into the line of fire”.
The jury should consider the vulnerability of Mr Phelan in the context of criminality on his farm over years, counsel said.
There was a “low-level long-running siege” of the farm with periods of no offending and of “intense and terrifying intrusions”. What happened on February 22nd, 2022, was “an intense and terrifying intrusion”.
Beginning her charge to the jury, Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford said she suspected few of them have experience of sheep farming, badger baiting, hunting or firearms but that was not to say they could not assess the evidence in the case.
Some matters might be “unusual and possibly disturbing” and can cause emotion but they must guard against “any emotional response” to the evidence.
The trial had been “testy” at times but both sides conducted it very properly, she said.
What counsel say about the evidence is their view and the jury could disregard or adopt it and any remarks counsel make about each other “should be approached with extreme caution” and the jury should not engage with them, she said.
Because of juror commitments, the trial has been adjourned to Monday when the judge will continue her charge.
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