A shooting victim has told a jury he wrongly identified the gunman because he wanted to get back at him after hearing rumours that he was having an affair with his girlfriend.
Paul Reilly (27) replied, "I couldn't tell you. I could have said Mass and I wouldn't have known," when asked to confirm that while he was in the Mater hospital, he told a garda it was the accused who shot him.
Gary Hutch (25), Sherrard Street Lower, Dublin, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life at Colburg Place, Seville Place, on December 8th, 2006.
Mr Reilly told Patrick McGrath, prosecuting, that in his statement to gardaí, he claimed he had been shot by Mr Hutch who had spoken to him that day about a missing gun.
He told Michael O'Higgins SC, defending, that he made the statement while in hospital after having surgery to his side, back and chest for the injuries he sustained in the shooting but he agreed with the suggestion by Mr O'Higgins that what he told gardaí was "a pack of lies".
He was in Cloverhill Prison when he heard that Mr Hutch was having an affair with his girlfriend. "I thought I was going to die and I didn't want him to end up with my partner and my two kids," Mr Reilly said.
Mr Reilly told Mr O'Higgins that he had taken crack just before the shooting and it made him hallucinate. He said he had taken it more than 100 times over the previous year or two.
He agreed with Mr O'Higgins that he lied to gardaí after he stabbed five people in 1996 during a rave in the Point depot when he told them his "milk was spiked with ecstasy" which led him to attack them.
He was later convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison.
He told Mr McGrath earlier that he had told gardaí he met Mr Hutch in the car park of his apartment block before the shooting but that he only said it was Mr Hutch to his girlfriend "to see if she reacted to hearing his name".
The trial continues before Judge Frank O'Donnell and a jury.