Brady murder trial to continue sitting
CCTV FOOTAGE OF CAR BELONGING TO ACCUSED’S FRIEND SHOWN TO COURT
A garda witness in the trial of a man accused of murdering Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe has shown the jury a frame by frame breakdown of the moment he says a car belonging to the accused’s friend drove by the scene hours before the robbery and fatal shooting.
Det Garda Garreth Kenna told prosecution counsel Lorcan Staines SC that the passenger side front window of the car was open on CCTV footage as the car drove by Lordship Credit Union having been closed moments earlier when the car passed a nearby garage. The witness has previously stated that the car belongs to a man named as a friend of the accused and a suspect in the credit union robbery that led to Det Gda Donohoe being shot dead.
His evidence was challenged by defence counsel Fiona Murphy SC who suggested that the CCTV footage did not show an open passenger side window and that what he was seeing was a ‘ trick of the light’.
Going over the evidence again under reexamination, Det Gda Kenna told Mr Staines that there was a difference in colour and tone between the front and back passenger windows as the car drove past the credit union less than eight hours before Det Gda Donohoe was shot dead. The footage was shown frame by frame as Det Gda Kenna repeated his reasons for stating that the window was open as the car drove by.
Aaron Brady (28) from New Road, Crossmaglen, Co Armagh has pleaded not guilty to the capital murder of Det Gda Adrian Donohoe who was then a member of An Garda Siochana on active duty on January 25, 2013 at Lordship Credit Union, Bellurgan, Co Louth.
Mr Brady has also pleaded not guilty to a charge of robbing approximately €7,000 in cash and assorted cheques on the same date and at the same location.
Inspector Darren Kirwan told prosecution counsel Brendan Grehan SC that up to January 25 2013 ‘it was not unusual’ to see Aaron Brady in the company of a second named suspect for the robbery. Neither of the suspects can be named for legal reasons.
On Friday Mr Justice Michael White told the jury of six men and seven women that a new protocol issued earlier this week that the court should sit for only two hours per day had been overturned and sittings will continue as normal for the remainder of the trial. He also told the jury that they may wear masks in court if they choose.
Two days earlier Mr Justice Michael White told the jury that hearings may have to be limited because of Covid-19 health concerns.
The judge’s comments came after an Oireachtas committee sought advice from consultant microbiologist Professor Martin Cormican on the health implications of holding committee meetings lasting more than two hours. Mr Cormican has been quoted in a written submission to the committee saying: ‘If a person at one of the hearings develops COVID-19 in the two days after the hearing they attended and if the hearing lasted for two hours or for more then everyone else who was in the room for that two-hour period will be designated a COVID contact and will be advised to self-isolate for 14 days.’
Mr Brady’s trial has been sitting from 9am until 1.30am with a 30 minute break in recent weeks.
The jury continued to hear evidence this morning as mobile phone analyst Edward McGoey told prosecution counsel Lorcan Staines SC that mobile phones belonging to Mr Brady and two other suspects for the robbery went silent during the period when the robbery took place. He said they later became active at a similar period of time.
A mobile phone analyst giving evidence in the trial of a man accused of murdering an on-duty garda was not told that the accused claimed he was laundering diesel on the night of the murder, the Central Criminal Court has heard.
Edward McGoey told defence counsel Michael O’Higgins SC that he was not an investigator and was simply given mobile phone numbers and asked to analyse what contacts were made between them at times relevant to the investigation. He said he was never made aware that the accused man, Aaron Brady, had told gardai in an off-the record statement that he was laundering diesel at a site in south Armagh on the same evening that Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe was shot dead during an armed raid on a credit union.
He said he was also unaware of information linking five men known to Aaron Brady to diesel laundering, some of whom were in contact with Mr Brady in the days leading up to the robbery and shooting.
Mr McGoey has spent five days giving evidence of phone contacts between Mr Brady, two named suspects for the robbery and a brother of one of those suspects.
Mr O’Higgins told him that he wanted to illustrate how the robbery and murder of Det Gda Donohoe were investigated. He said there were some ‘small details’ that were investigated and he wished to contrast that with other details that were not. Giving examples, he said Mr Brady had told gardai he watched a rented film called #Lawless’ on the day before the murder. Gardai visited the local Xtra-Vision to find out if the film had been rented at the time claimed. Similarly, he said, a welder was quizzed on whether he had been unable to provide Mr Brady with a part for a quad bike.
Mr O’Higgins suggested that this was ‘investigation to the nth degree’ but the witness said he does not know whether such things are ‘standard, run of the mill for a garda investigation.’
Mr O’Higgins then took the witness through a statement to gardai by Mr Brady in which he said that earlier on the evening when Det Gda Donohoe was shot he had been working at a diesel laundering site in south Armagh. Mr McGoey said it is not for him to say whether that is something that gardai should have investigated.
Mr O’Higgins said gardai also had evidence confirming that the site where Mr Brady said he was laundering diesel in south Armagh was in fact a diesel laundering site. The witness said this information was new to him and when asked if it would have been of use to him in his analysis of mobile phone data he said: ‘I can’t say.’
When Mr O’Higgins asked him if information relating to fuel laundering should have been followed up by investigating gardai Mr McGoey said: “I can’t comment.”
Mr O’Higgins said it is the defence case that Mr Brady and at least five other people who were in regular phone contact in the days around January 25 2013 were involved in fuel laundering. He put it to the witness that when you look at the phone contacts between these people over those days it is ‘ hard to know what to make of it.’
The witness replied: ‘ There is nothing to make of it other than they made calls at these times and it lasted this long.’ He agreed that the prosecution was leading the evidence of contacts between Mr Brady and certain people to persuade the jury that there were patterns of contact at critical times that would allow you to draw conclusions.
Mr McGoey said he didn’t think it unusual that he was not told about aspects of the garda investigation, telling Mr O’Higgins that he was asked to set out contacts between certain numbers and that’s what he did.