‘Masked men entered pub before the boss was shot’

TWO men in horror-style masks entered a pub before the manager was shot dead, the Special Criminal Court has heard.

Michael Barr, 35, was shot seven times, with five shots to the head and one each to the shoulder and neck, the prosecution has said.

Eamonn Cumberton, 30, denies murdering Mr Barr in the Sunset House public house in Dublin’s north inner city on April 25, 2016.

The prosecution say Mr Cumberton, of Mountjoy Street, Dublin 7, is ‘inextricably linked’ to items recovered from a partly burnt-out car nearby and that the items are ‘inextricably linked’ to the shooting.

In court yesterday, witnesses who were in the Sunset House spoke about the night of the shooting.

Theresa Smyth told the non-jury, three-judge court she was ‘messing at the bar’ with Mr Barr when she saw two masked men come in.

‘I thought they were kissograms,’ Ms Smyth said. ‘I thought it was a joke. I said, “There’s two kissograms for you.”’

She said the men wore ‘Freddy Krueger’ or ‘Halloween’ masks.

Ms Smyth said she heard someone say ‘get down’, and everybody got down. She said she looked at Mr Barr and she saw ‘blood everywhere’ and that he was ‘ready to fall’.

The men wearing the masks were gone ‘in seconds’, the court heard.

Ms Smyth said that she saw Mr Barr ‘on the ground, all the blood coming from his head’. ‘I crawled over and blessed him,’ she said.

The trial continues.