The mother of a man accused of murder told how she thought she was dead from an impending attack, moments before her son shot her assailant dead, a jury in the Central Criminal Court heard yesterday.
Ms Mary Thomas told the court how she and her husband had suffered kicks and punches from a number of men during a Finglas pub brawl. She said one of the men had stood over her with a crowbar, about to strike her with it, just before her son appeared at her side. "I thought I was dead," she said.
Mr David Thomas (34), Cloonlara Crescent, Finglas, Dublin, has denied the murder of Mr Eamon O'Reilly (23) of Sandyhill Gardens, Ballymun, in the Dublin pub on January 11th, 1998.
Mr Thomas has also denied seven other counts of possession of firearms and ammunition with the intent to endanger life or cause serious injury and of assaulting two gardai.
Previously the court heard that on January 11th, 1998, an argument developed in the Finglas public house between two families and it had got "out of hand". Members of the Thomas family wept as Ms Thomas gave her direct evidence. She had gone to the pub to meet members of her family that afternoon when she and her husband were attacked. She said as she walked over to her husband, who was hiding from a gang of men behind a pillar in the bar, "one of the gang shouted out a name to me, a bad name, an offensive name".
"I felt disgusted [but] didn't do anything. I sat down beside my husband when a gang of them jumped on top of us. I was grabbed [by the lapels] and just thrown along a table. [My husband] was getting beat up. They were beating him, kicked to the ground on his hands and knees. About four men.
"I went back and tried to get in between him and try and grab the bars out of their hands. I couldn't. I was thrown again.
"They were just giving it to him," she said. Ms Thomas said she was assaulted again; "punched and [had] pool balls to the head by Eamon O'Reilly. I had a chance to get away and as I got away I realised I couldn't get out. I turned around then and Eamon O'Reilly had a crowbar. He was going to come down on me," she said.
"I thought I was dead. He wouldn't have stopped with one bang, he'd have kept at me. My son came in then and he turned around. He stopped and then I heard the bang. He fell to the ground."
Previously the court heard that there had been "problems" between the two families and after receiving a telephone call, the accused man had fetched his sawn-off shotgun from his house and gone to the public house. The prosecution alleges that Mr Thomas then shot Mr O'Reilly.
The State pathologist, Dr John Harbison, said Mr O'Reilly was shot with a shotgun at close range. He gave the cause of death as a right haemothorax, which is an accumulation of blood in the right lung. The trial before Mr Justice Butler and a jury continues today.