‘These people were just shot while doing a morning workout’

THE Garda tape set up in the quiet corner of the seaside town of Bray formed a line in the sand.

On one side, media crews were mixing with shocked locals to see if anyone had seen or knew anything about the shooting or the victims – on the other members of the Garda technical bureau worked the crime scene.

By 7am the gunman had fled and left one man dead and two injured, one the father of Olympic boxing champion Katie Taylor.

Pete Taylor’s distinctive white car was parked directly outside. He was the man who had helped put the gym on the map when he trained Katie there for Olympic gold at London in 2012.

While Katie trained, it was a mere shed containing a rudimentary boxing ring and an exercise area. It didn’t even have a toilet. But as Katie’s fame grew there was local and national embarrassment at the conditions she was working under.

In January 2014 it was Katie who cut the ribbon on the €300,000 state-of-the-art facility that replaced the shed that helped her become so famous.

But yesterday morning it was taped off again and making news for all the wrong reasons.

Technical bureau teams dressed in disposable white boiler suits were gathering the physical evidence, including what appeared to be a bloodstained training shoe.

For the locals, it was an unfamiliar and unnerving site in such a quiet part of their coastal town. One local said: “I could see the guards, ambulances here. Then someone told me there was a shooting. Someone said it was three young guys.

“There was a lot of activity here with the guards when I came down. This kind of thing hasn’t happened before.

“It’s a quiet place, the guys train here and are always running up and down the pier.

“It’s a positive and happy place. I don’t know what the story is,” they added.

“The reaction here is just one of shock. It gives Bray a bad name, we don’t need it, everyone has the same feeling about it.”

Another local said the area is “usually very quiet”. He said the club is “evidently very good”.

“I just got the news, I was getting phone calls and different people were ringing me,” said Sinn Féin TD for Wicklow/East Carlow John Brady.

“I’m in shock. The club here is a fantastic club. It has a huge appeal to people right across Bray. People come here first thing in the morning and workout before they head to work.

“These people were just shot while doing a morning workout.”

The body of Bobby Messett was removed in the early afternoon, at around the same time that a van fitting the description of the silver VW Caddy with northern Irish registration plates that gardaí were looking for was located miles away on the Pigeon house Road on the outskirts of the city.

Another crime scene was established, with vital evidence to be collected.