‘I thought it was my responsibility to run at gunman’
Pete Taylor tells of bullets ‘going around room’ at gym
BOXING coach Pete Taylor has described being shot in ‘mid-air’ as he dived over a gym bench and attempted to lunge at a gunman who had opened fire at Bray Boxing Club five years ago.
‘I thought it was my responsibility to run at him,’ Mr Taylor told the jury in the Central Criminal Court murder trial of Gerard Cervi, 36, yesterday.
Mr Cervi, from the East Wall area in Dublin 3, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Robert ‘Bobby’ Messett at Bray Boxing Club, Bray Harbour, Co. Wicklow, on June 5, 2018. He has also denied the attempted murders of Mr Taylor and Ian Britton on the same date and at the same location.
At the Central Criminal Court yesterday, Mr Taylor told prosecuting barrister Paul Murray SC he was at the gym on the morning of June 5, 2018, to run an exercise class from 6.45am to 7.45am.
The father of boxing champion Katie Taylor said he drove his white Mustang to the class and arrived around 6.30am, when he opened the club and went upstairs to prepare the sessions on a whiteboard. Mr Taylor said that when people started arriving in
‘I got shot and that spun me around’
the gym for the session, he went to put music on and was next to a pulling machine.
‘As I plugged in the music, I heard loud bangs and thought an air compressor had blown up but I saw someone standing in the frame of the door,’ said Mr Taylor. ‘He was shooting around. As he started to shoot to one side, I ran towards the gunman. He [the gunman] was inside the door frame with his feet on either side of the door frame, splayed apart.’
Mr Taylor said the gunman held the gun in both hands but did not enter the room. He said: ‘I was looking around for something to throw at him but couldn’t find anything. I thought it was my responsibility to run at him.’
Mr Taylor, in his final day giving evidence yesterday, told Mr Murray he did not see what happened to Mr Messett while the bullets were ‘going around the room’.
He said: ‘When I was running towards the gunman, I didn’t see a bench and it caught my leg. When I was diving over it, the bench caught my leg and then I got shot and that spun me around.’ Mr Taylor said he was in ‘mid-air’ going over the bench in the process of lunging towards the gunman when he was shot.
‘I wasn’t standing fully straight and it caught me near the shoulder,’ he said. Mr Taylor confirmed to Mr Murray the bullet went into his left bicep area and into the left side of the chest, and then out through the middle of his chest.
‘I was concerned about looking after everybody in the gym. The first thing I asked was if everybody was OK,’ he said.
Mr Taylor described the gunman as around 5ft 8in and firing at chest height. ‘I remember a hi-vis vest and everything else was black,’ said Mr Taylor when describing the shooter.
He added that he thought he heard seven or eight shots over 30-40 seconds. The witness said he did not see the gunman leave and did not hear any more shots after he was wounded.
Eddie McCann attended to Mr Taylor until gardaí and medics arrived. Mr Taylor was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital, where he underwent surgery. ‘I had a steel cage around my arm for about 18 months,’ he said.
In cross-examination, Mr Taylor told defence counsel Hugh Hartnett he tried to assess the situation in order to ‘protect others’ before he ran at the gunman.
Mr Hartnett asked if Mr Taylor was running with his head down and was told he was because bullets were being fired. Mr Hartnett asked Mr Taylor to stand and demonstrate the ‘straddling or splayed’ stance of the gunman. ‘Everyone knows what I mean, I’m not standing up,’ said Mr Taylor.
Mr Hartnett asked if Mr Taylor’s clothes and personal items and a sum of money in his clothing were removed and was told by Mr Taylor they were put in a bag by gardaí. Mr Taylor told Mr Hartnett that he requested the return of the items but had no issue with gardaí over the matter.
Mr Hartnett asked if Mr Taylor was ‘anxious’ about the return of the clothing, his runners and the sum of money.
‘This is a murder trial and not about what was in my clothes,’ said Mr Taylor. ‘I did ask for them back but I got no answer at all.’
Mr Hartnett asked Mr Taylor if he was concerned about the money in the clothing.
‘There was no concern about money. This is not about money. Someone was after being killed,’ said Mr Taylor, who added that he made a complaint about the nonreturn of items.
Mr Taylor has now completed his evidence before Judge Karen O’Connor and a jury of six men and six women.
The trial, which is expected to last six weeks, continues.
‘This is not about money’