The brother-in-law of a murder accused told how he was repeatedly beaten with a bar stool, later receiving 14 stitches to the head, during a pub brawl in which another man was shot dead, during a murder trial in the Central Criminal Court yesterday. Mr Justin Brannigan, of Cloonlara Crescent, Finglas, told the court he had gone to the pub with his wife and sister-in-law and within minutes a fight broke out.
He said he had wanted to intervene and help his father-in-law who was being attacked but one of his attackers had told him if he "didn't get out of the way, you're gonna get it too".
He told how he later ran to a door in the pub and hid behind it, propping a table against it to prevent anyone getting in, but said someone had attacked him from the rear with a bar stool, hitting him repeatedly on the upper body and head.
David Thomas (34) of Cloonlara Crescent, Finglas, Dublin, has denied the murder of Mr Eamon O'Reilly (23) of Sandyhill Gardens, Ballymun, in the Co Dublin pub on January 11th, 1998.
Previously the court heard that an argument developed in the public house between two families and that it had got out of hand. Mr Brannigan said he had to get 14 stitches to the head, suffered two dislocations, damage to his wrist, bruises to the top of his body and a broken finger. He said he was now only 80 per cent "of what I originally was".
A brother of the accused, Mr Rodney Thomas (27), told the court he and his brother David had sustained several beatings from members of the "O'Reilly gang", which included people who were not related to the O'Reillys, in the last four to five years. He said after the first and second beatings, which took place in a bar in Ballymun, the management of the pub had paid him and his brother several hundred pounds not to go to the Garda to complain about the assaults.
The trial before Mr Justice Butler and a jury of five men and seven women continues today.