The former wife of a man accused of capital murder told a jury at the Central Criminal Court yesterday that the accused had threatened to kill her with a knife months before he killed a Garda sergeant.
Mr Daniel O'Toole (37), of Cashel Avenue, Crumlin, Dublin denies that on July 21st, 1999, at Tallaght Garda station, he murdered Garda Sgt Andrew Callanan, who was acting in the course of his duties.
Mr O'Toole pleaded not guilty to the charge of capital murder but guilty of manslaughter. If he is found guilty of capital murder, he will be given an automatic 40-year sentence. He also pleaded not guilty to a charge of arson with intent to damage property.
Ms Bernadette O'Toole told the court her marriage to her then husband before July 1999 "wasn't the best".
She said allegations of sexual abuse, made by their daughter against Mr O'Toole, culminated in her securing an interim barring order in October 1998, excluding him from the family home.
The family moved to live with relatives in Wexford and the accused later moved back into the family home in Tallaght.
Mrs O'Toole said that some time before Sgt Callanan's death a row broke out between her and the accused in which he "produced a flick-knife and threw it down on the ground between [two children] and told one of them to pick up the knife and kill him. He was angry."
She said that on one occasion the accused told her she would "spend my life looking over my shoulder and in one call he said he'd come down in an hour and I would be dead".
The trial before Mr Justice Carney and a jury of six women and five men continues today.