A MAN charged with murder told gardaí that organised criminals threatened to kill his parents and himself if he did not shoot an alleged drug dealer.
David Patchell (21), Rossfield Crescent, Tallaght, Dublin, has admitted being one of two gunmen who shot into a parked car on January 19th, 2009, at Kilmartin Drive, Tallaght. He has pleaded not guilty to murdering Stephen O’Halloran (20) as he sat in the driver’s seat.
He also denies attempting to murder Paul Core and Anthony Harte and to causing them serious harm. They too were sitting in Mr O’Halloran’s car outside his home.
Det Garda David Jennings was giving evidence of the Garda interviews yesterday on the second day of Mr Patchell’s murder trial at the Central Criminal Court.
Mr Patchell denied any involvement during his first three interviews in April 2009, but made the admissions after other witness statements were read to him, including one from his mother.
“I approached the car with the gun and shot into the car. I didn’t want to do it, I was pressured,” he said. “I was threatened that I was going to be killed and my mother and father were going to be killed because I owed a lot of money.”
He explained that he was being wrongly blamed for €5,000 worth of cocaine going missing.
“I was set up,” he said later. “I was only going if something went wrong. He was shot before I fired my gun.” He added that he had three bullets and the other gunman had seven. “Before I knew it, there were flashes everywhere, before I could fire mine.”
He said he knew the three victims, having already described Mr O’Halloran as a bully. He said they had been expecting them over to have a joint with them. However, he caught them by surprise when he pointed his gun at the back passenger window.
“I was informed there was someone in the front of the car just after getting out of jail. There was no one in the front passenger seat,” he said. “The other two were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I fired three times into the back of the car. I just saw flashes.” He said he aimed to miss the people in the back.
“I didn’t intend to kill anyone. The first bullet I shot, the gun nearly flew out of my hand,” he recalled. “I didn’t want to do any of this. I just wanted to protect my family.” When asked what type of guns they had used, he said they were like the one that the detective had been wearing that morning. He said a Traveller had helped him dig them up in the mountains a few days earlier.
He said he did not get paid a penny for the shooting and did not hear from the criminal gang again.
“It was a debt that was allegedly wiped clean,” he said.
He would not name the other gunman, who he agreed was instrumental in the planning of the shooting.
When asked if he was afraid, he said: “Yes, not so much of him, but the crowd he works for, and not for me. It’s my family I have to look out for.”
Det Garda Joanne O’Sullivan of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation testified that she also interviewed the defendant.
He said an armed and masked gang took him in the back of a transit van up the Dublin mountains and told him they wanted “Red Steo” dead.
“I think they brought me up the mountains to give me a frightening,” he told her.
She asked him if Mr O’Halloran had been “a big-time drug dealer”.
“He did a bit,” Mr Patchell replied. “The word was going around that he wanted to move up in the drug business.”
“I presumed it was over drugs,” he said of the killing, explaining that it was about “turf”.
He presumed they had picked on him (Mr Patchell) because he had previously had an argument with Mr O’Halloran, who had texted his girlfriend. However, he said this had been sorted out and he would never kill over a girl.
Det Garda Gary Corrigan also interviewed Mr Patchell.
He told Brendan Grehan SC, defending, that his best friend at the time, Paul Byrne (20), was also interviewed about the shooting. Mr Byrne disappeared months later and his body was found in the mountains near Blessington last July.
Mr Patchell agreed that a possible line of investigation in his murder was that he was murdered by a criminal gang.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Barry White and a jury.