A DUBLIN MAN accused of pointing a gun at gardai over three years ago denied that he even had a gun and said that he had run away from two uniformed gardai to avoid harassment by them.
Mr Leonard O'Shea claimed that, while handcuffed in Sundrive Road station, a garda wearing a "George Webb" boot pinned him face down on the floor of the interview room by pressing on to his neck.
He told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that he was called a "scumbag" by the gardai.
Replying to his counsel, Mr Michael O'Higgins, he strenuously denied suggestions that he had been acting suspiciously when gardai approached him the previous day on the street.
Mr O'Shea, of Rutland Grove, Dublin - is denying - having a firearm or imitation firearm at Sundrive Road, Crumlin, on October 26th, 1992, to intimidate Gardai James Cadden and Stephen O'Mahony. He has also pleaded not guilty to assaults on Det Sgt Gerard O'Carroll and Det Garda Pat Walsh the following day and to resisting Garda Walsh.
The defendant told Mr O'Higgins that he was on his way to a pub when he heard the gardai shouting at him. Asked if he had pointed a gun at them and threatened to blow their heads off, he replied: "That did not happen."
He recalled the following morning, when gardai raided his family home. He heard a smash and shouting and grabbed a dumbbell he used for exercise to defend himself.
Recalled to the witness box, Det Sgt O'Carroll told Mr O'Higgins that suggestions by the accused man's mother that he had pointed his official gun at them and that a number of gardai were wearing scarves or masks were "a complete fabrication".
The trial is expected to conclude today.