LAWYERS FOR the State have told a jury that a man on trial for murder was involved in an alleged “random attack of gratuitous and extreme violence”, during which another man was assaulted with a machete and run over by a car.
Opening the trial of Angelo O’Riordan at the Central Criminal Court, Pauline Walley SC said it was the prosecution’s case that Mr O’Riordan was acting in concert with a number of other men and they were involved in a common design, when they allegedly hijacked and attacked Aidan Myers.
Mr O’Riordan (23), Point Road, Bellurgan, Dundalk, Co Louth, has denied murdering Mr Myers (37) at Faughart Upper, outside Dundalk town, in the early hours of December 13th, 2006.
He has also pleaded not guilty to hijacking a Mitsubishi space wagon and to assaulting Wayne Rutherford on Mary Street, Dundalk. on the night of December 12th.
The prosecution asserts that Mr O’Riordan and three other men were together in a dark green BMW in Dundalk town at about 11pm on the night in question.
Ms Walley said they were involved in assaulting Mr Rutherford on Mary Street with some kind of implement, and he sustained a serious injury to his arm that required 45 stitches.
She said the men then hijacked a Mitsubishi space wagon.
Ms Walley said that about 15 minutes later, the BMW and the hijacked car were seen near St Brigid’s shrine at Faughart. She said a red Astra car was also on the road and the BMW rammed it from behind.
Mr Myers was a front-seat passenger in the Astra, which was being driven by Gearóid O’Donnell. Ms Walley said Mr O’Riordan and the other men then got these two men out of their car and attacked them with machetes.
As the two men lay injured on the ground, Ms Walley said Mr O’Riordan got into the hijacked Mitsubishi and rammed the Astra car.
“The prosecution’s case is that the accused man caused the Astra to run over Aidan Myers as he was lying on the ground. As he caused the Astra to move forward, the body of Mr Myers is caught underneath it and he is screaming”, Ms Walley said.
Mr Myers died in hospital just over four hours later.
Ms Walley also told the jury that the hijacked Mitsubishi was found by PSNI officers the following day in Newry, Co Down. She said material belonging to Mr Myers’s companion was found inside.
The prosecution also alleges that Mr O’Riordan “confessed” to his friend Daniel Mulholland that he “had driven over” Mr Myers on that night.
It alleges that Mr O’Riordan told his friend he had been with his brothers “spinning around” in his brother’s BMW, when they hijacked a Mitsubishi. He said they were up around St Brigid’s shrine when they came across another car, stopped it and tried to pull two men out of it.
Mr O’Riordan then allegedly told his friend that when the two men retaliated, his brother started “hacking” one of them by swinging a sword at him.
“Angelo said he drove on and hit the other man with the car, and drove over him,” Ms Walley told the jury.