Det. Garda still had gun clipped into holster

THE jury in the trial of a man accused of the capital murder of Garda Adrian Donohoe has been shown a photograph of his gun still clipped into its holster while he lay on the ground, having died from a single shotgun blast.

Detective Garda Eoin Conway told prosecuting counsel Lorcan Staines SC that he photographed the scene hours after Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe was shot dead in the car park of a credit union in Co Louth on January 25, 2013.

A forensic tent had been set up around Det Gda Donohoe’s body beside a Toyota Avensis, which the witness said was an unmarked garda car. The windows had been smashed and he photographed a spent shotgun cartridge nearby. Inside the tent was a Samsung mobile phone that had come free from its cover. He also took a photograph showing what he told the jury was Det Gda Donohoe’s official firearm on his belt with the holster clipped.

Det Gda Conway said he took photos of anything that gardai thought might be important, including cigarette butts, drinks cans and three sets of keys found on the ground in different places nearby. He also took photographs of three cars in the car park. One was a red Nissan Micra with the doors open. Another photograph showed a Mazda with the windows above all four doors smashed.

Gareth Caldwell, a civilian major crime forensic adviser for the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said he went to the scene of a ‘completely burnt out’ vehicle on January 27, 2013. The vehicle was, he said, located a ‘considerable distance down a stone laneway’ off the Cumson Road in Co Armagh. The witness identified a photograph taken of the burnt-out vehicle.

Civilian scenes of crime investigator with the PSNI Fiona Doherty said she took possession of the vehicle on January 28 that year and put it into secure storage. She photographed it and anything that was recovered from it by investigators.

Fire officers then removed the roof of the vehicle to allow investigators ‘excavate’ the car by going through ‘every piece of debris with a sieve to recover any piece of possible evidence.

Under cross examination Ms Doherty told defence counsel Michael O’Higgins SC that crime scene investigators would ‘definitely’ go to a house if they believed that the suspects in a crime had been to that house.

Mr O’Higgins asked what would happen if the suspects said they were at a particular location at the time the offence of which they were suspected was committed. She said investigators would go there to try to ‘prove if they were there or weren’t there.’

She agreed that if a suspect said they were laundering fuel at a particular location she would go to that location if requested.

The witness said she was not aware of any request to go to an address on Concession Road in Armagh.