A new Age Traveller about to be sentenced for a killing on a campsite in Co Leitrim in 1998 has tried to change his plea to not guilty, claiming new evidence which shows Garda corruption.
Last June, three New Age Travellers, Andrew Gordon Roche (36), of Drumlease, Dromohair, Co Leitrim; Mr Keith Cooper (25), of Gortimar, Manorhamilton; and Mark Francis Barber (33), with an address at the New Age Traveller settlement in Boihy, Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim, appeared in the Central Criminal Court to go on trial for the murder of Mr Elliott Colin Double, otherwise known as Mr Elliott Robertson, at a campsite at Boihy on October 6th, 1998.
All three initially pleaded not guilty to the murder but in the opening stages of the trial, first Barber and then Roche and Mr Cooper entered pleas of not guilty to murder but guilty of manslaughter. The pleas were accepted by the DPP, and the three were due to be sentenced yesterday.
In the first week of August, Barber was found dead in a caravan on the campsite. His mother, Ms Sheena McKerrell Barber, blames the trauma he had been through in connection with the murder charge for his death.
As Roche and Mr Cooper appeared for sentencing before Mr Justice Diarmuid O'Donovan yesterday, Mr Cooper attempted to withdraw his plea.
Representing himself in court after his legal team, led by Mr Anthony Sammon SC, withdrew from the case, Mr Cooper told the judge that he was in shock at the time he entered a plea of guilty to manslaughter and now he did not think he had made the right decision.
In the three months since he had found new evidence that changed his case, including "medical evidence" and "falsified statements".
Mr Cooper said that medical reports from Sligo General Hospital were not included in the book of evidence, and that that material - which included the results of catscans and an ultrasound - showed less injuries on Mr Robertson's body than those recorded in the post-mortem report.
Asked what the import of the claimed new evidence was, he said it showed "Garda corruption" and suggested that the alleged extra injuries were inflicted after Mr Robertson was hospitalised.
The hospital reports showed that the deceased had less significant injuries than those recorded in the post-mortem. "There's also statements falsified, including one of my own statements."
Cross-examined by Mr George Bermingham SC, for the DPP, Mr Cooper accepted that he was involved in a confrontation with Mr Robertson in which weapons were used, and that Mr Robertson was struck a number of times. However, he said that since June he had become "firmer in the view" that the injuries to Mr Robertson were not as serious as the post-mortem suggested.
Barber's mother intervened during the court hearing to tell the judge that the hospital records contradicted the post-mortem report. "Unfortunately, Mr Cooper was never supplied with the hospital reports," she said.
After submissions, Mr Justice O'Donovan advised Mr Cooper to seek fresh legal advice and gave him a week to assemble the alleged new evidence and present it in affidavit. He adjourned the case to October 22nd. There was no objection to continuing bail.
In the case of Roche, he adjourned sentencing to October 22nd.
In the course of a sentence hearing, Det Sgt Gerry Forde described Mr Robertson as one of a gang of "anti-social criminals" who descended on the Leitrim campsite in the year of the killing and brought scenes of "drunken debauchery", larceny and car-ramming.
The confrontation which led to Mr Robertson's death arose from attempts by the more "peaceable New Age Travellers" to get him and his friends to leave the area.
In her post-mortem examination, the deputy State pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, found that Mr Robertson died from many blows to the body but that no single blow could be isolated as the cause of death.
His father, Mr Ralph Robertson, told the hearing that his son "wasn't what people are making out".
He said he visited his son in July of the year of his death and everything seemed "hunky dory" on the campsite.