A security guard allegedly made an anonymous phone call to gardai admitting he was involved in killing a man outside a pub, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard yesterday.
Mr Keith Hayes did not know the man was dead until a friend told him three days later. Mr Hayes (24), of Moatview Avenue, Coolock, pleads not guilty to the manslaughter of Joseph O'Toole (22) outside the Purty Loft disco, Dun Laoghaire, on July 25th, 1998.
Det Sgt John Jennings told Mr Michael Counihan SC, prosecuting, that on July 29th 1998, a male caller rang Dun Laoghaire Garda station to say that he might have been responsible for the killing. A solicitor rang back and said his client would be calling to the station.
Det Sgt Jennings said that later that evening, Mr Hayes arrived at the station. He told gardai that on July 25th, 1998, he went to Dun Laoghaire with his friend, Mr Paul Coyle, also a security guard. They drank in various pubs and later went back to Mr Coyle's security cabin to sleep.
Mr Hayes said he went to a nearby filling station but got lost and asked a man for directions. The man did not seem to be responding to his questions and Mr Hayes asked him what his problem was.
The man came towards him as if to hit him but Mr Hayes struck first. Mr Hayes told gardai he kept walking after the man fell on the ground. He went back to the security cabin and told Mr Coyle what had happened. Mr Hayes said Mr Coyle called to his house on July 28th, 1999, and told him that gardai were looking for witnesses to a killing.
Mr Coyle told Mr Counihan he was sleeping in his security cabin on Cumberland Street, Dun Laoghaire, on the early hours of July 26th, 1999. Mr Hayes woke him up and said he had been in a scuffle with a man outside a night-club. Mr Coyle said he did not believe Mr Hayes because he did not look like someone who had been in a fight.
The following Tuesday he read in a newspaper that gardai were looking for witnesses to a killing in Dun Laoghaire. The trial continues before Judge Dominic Lynch and a jury.