‘That was a gunshot’
Witnesses recall suspicious noise on day of alleged murder
TWO people who lived near the office where Gold Coast marketing manager Philip Carlyle was found dead told police they heard a gunshot the day he was allegedly murdered, a court has heard.
Mr Carlyle, 48, was shot four times at point-blank range on April 13, 1997, in a soundproof plant room at the offices of Gold Coast IT startup Atnet, where he worked.
His business partner Neil Andrew Pentland, 72, is accused of firing four bullets into the 48-year-old father’s head in a “methodical execution”.
He has pleaded not guilty to murder in the Brisbane Supreme Court.
His barrister Saul Holt QC has argued the circumstantial case against Pentland is weak.
“The police narrowed their focus on Mr Pentland far too early,” Mr Holt said on Monday.
But Crown prosecutor David Meredith claims Pentland and Mr Carlyle’s partnership had “deteriorated” as the marketing manager insisted on taking trips overseas and was having an online romance with a woman in the United States.
The judge-alone trial on Wednesday heard evidence from a mother and son – Jean and Randall Dunbar – who lived about a kilometre from Atnet’s offices in Robina.
Mrs Dunbar told the court she was standing on her balcony talking with her son on April 13, 1997, when she “heard a noise in the distance” about noon or 1pm. Her son gave evidence the noise sounded like a gunshot and he was experienced in identifying the sound having worked near a Gold Coast pistol club.
At the time, he told officers: “I am sure that noise I heard was a gunshot.”
During cross-examination, Mrs Dunbar conceded she had never heard a gunshot but told police she thought the noise was “what a gunshot would have sounded like”.
The court has previously heard Mr Carlyle told friends he “was a heavy gambler in the past” and received tips from a “gangster in Sydney” until another person threatened to “break his legs”.
It has also been revealed Mr Carlyle’s wife had a knife held to her throat by debt collectors before his death.
Mr Holt said the deceased man had been the subject of “multiple threats from a range of other people over very many years”. The trial continues.