A protected witness has told the trial of a Limerick man facing charges of assault and false imprisonment that the accused was present in a house where a nail-gun attack was carried out.
It is the prosecution’s case that three men were involved in a “joint enterprise” during which Dan Quilligan, from Rathkeale, was beaten and had his left foot pinned to a kitchen floor with a nail-gun.
Mark Heffernan (32), of Swallow Drive, John Carew Park, has pleaded not guilty at the non-jury Special Criminal Court to assaulting Mr Quilligan and causing him harm at Larch Court, Kennedy Park, Limerick, on September 14th, 2015.
He has also denied falsely imprisoning Mr Quilligan at the same address on the same date. Two men pleaded guilty to the same offences last week.
Both sentenced
Gerard Mackin (33), of Star Court, John Carey Park, Southill, Limerick and Patrick Hayes (52), Larch Court, were both sentenced to three years in prison by the non-jury court.
Prosecution witness Tom Lillis on Tuesday told Tara Burns SC that in September 2015 he was living at the house in Larch Court with two other men, including Hayes. On the morning of the 14th, Mr Lillis was in the sitting-room drinking with two men, the court heard, when several men came to the house.
Mr Lillis said he knew three or four of them. They were Mackin, Mr Heffernan and Mr Quilligan.
The two men who Mr Lillis had been drinking with went to the pub, the court heard. The witness said Mr Heffernan and Mackin came into the sitting-room and told him to “f**k off out of here”.
They were wearing white suits and one of them was holding “some sort of machine thing”, the court heard.
Mr Lillis said the two men then went into the kitchen. He said he then left the house and went to the Spotted Dog pub in Janesboro, where he got €20 from another man before going to an off-licence.
When he returned to the house at Larch Court, the court heard, Hayes was “frothing” and there was “blood all over the kitchen”.
‘What are you after doing?’
Mr Lillis said he asked Hayes, “What are you after doing?”
Hayes then asked Mr Lillis to clean up the kitchen.
The evidence is being heard as part of a voir dire - or “trial within a trial” - to help the judges determine its admissibility.
Earlier, the court saw a succession of CCTV clips from cameras at Mr Heffernan’s house, a Credit Union branch and the Spotted Dog.
The footage recorded Mackin coming and going from Mr Heffernan’s house over the course of the afternoon of the alleged assault, the court heard.
The trial continues.