Back on our streets, gangland thug who mocked the State
Keane’s legacy is a law on witness intimidation that could now be tested
TWELVE years ago, Limerick criminal Liam Keane walked free when his murder trial dramatically collapsed after a succession of prosecution witnesses refused to testify against him. The case never got to the jury. Claims of witness intimidation and the photograph of Keane giving two fingers to the State outside the Four Courts provoked widespread public outrage. In a swift response, then-justice minister Michael McDowell introduced new provisions making it harder for ‘hostile’ witnesses to repudiate prior statements.
As a journalist at that time and, by chance, the only one present in court that day when the trial collapsed in November 2003, I heard firsthand the chilling details unfold of a trial whose ramifications are still felt today.
The attack that led to that trial involved 19-year-old Eric Leamy, who was hit in the face with a plank during a row. His close friend Roy Behan tried to intervene to calm the situation down. When the attacker pulled out a knife and stabbed Eric Leamy, it was Roy Behan who took him to hospital.
Leamy was dying, spurting blood, Behan recalled. And when Leamy died, it was Roy Behan who helped to carry his coffin.
Gardaí in Limerick had a detailed statement signed by Behan. It purported to be an accurate account of exactly what had happened on the Lee Estate in Limerick that night. In it, Behan named Liam Keane as the youth who hit Leamy a ‘sneaky blow’ to the face with a nail-studded plank before pulling out a five or six-inch blade and stabbing him to death.
But when it came to telling that same story under oath at the Central Criminal Court, Leamy’s friend decided he had not seen anything after all. See no evil, speak no evil.
Yes, he remembered being with Eric Leamy and other youths earlier that night as they drank near the banks of the Shannon. When gardaí moved them on, they went to the Lee Estate on the outskirts of the Island Field near St Mary’s Park. And, yes, he vaguely recalled a row flaring up when Leamy objected to Keane’s friend, Jonathan Edwards, kicking a puppy. He also remembered Leamy bleeding to death on his way to the Limerick Regional. It was the bit in the middle he couldn’t recall.
HE’D blanked out through a mixture of drink and dope, he told the court. He did not see Keane take out a knife and stab Leamy, he said, and he most definitely did not put that in any Garda statement. It was at that point that the case collapsed and Liam Keane walked free, thanks in no small measure to this memory lapse.
It was not the first time Behan was gripped by amnesia. Less than 24 hours after Leamy died, Keane’s friend Jonathan Edwards was bludgeoned to death with a piece of aluminium.
When Behan was called to the stand in that case, he either refused to answer questions or replied: ‘I can’t remember nothing.’
Judge Paul Carney – who presided in both trials – ordered him to be taken into custody until he changed his ‘attitude’.
He eventually gave evidence, but the jury subsequently acquitted the accused man.
The prosecution case in the Keane trial was in trouble from the moment the first eyewitness, David Murphy, approached the witness box. He strutted towards the stand in tracksuit and runners, pins and studs in his face, shouting that he saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing. ‘Just answer the question,’ the judge demanded. ‘I’m answering no questions,’ came the reply. He was sent to the cells.
Next up was James Price, followed by Paul ‘Midgy’ Campbell, Amanda McNamara, Stephen Blackhall, Tony McMillan and, finally, Roy Behan. From the signed statements of these seven witnesses, gardaí had a version of events of the night of August 27, 2001, upon which the DPP based the murder charge against Keane.
In their statements, the witnesses identified Keane as the man who stuck the knife into Leamy’s side, or otherwise put him at the scene. Witness Amanda McNamara told gardaí Eric Leamy was not armed: ‘Eric was saying, “Put down the knife and I’ll fight you.” Liam Keane was the only person I saw with a knife.’
McNamara was barely 18 at the time of the killing. When she took the stand, aged 20, she too was gripped by amnesia brought on, she claimed, by severe alcohol and drug abuse. She answered questions with a shrug and a barely disguised disdain.
By the time she gave evidence, David Murphy, James Price and Midgy Campbell had already spent time in the cells. When it was Stephen Blackhall’s turn, he too denied making a statement implicating Keane. He barely lifted his head as he gave evidence and sat with his face turned away from the bench. Blackhall claimed he only made a statement because gardaí arrested him but he was later forced to concede he was never under arrest. However, from the cross-examination of some witnesses, defence counsel John Phelan established they had not referred to Liam Keane in
their ini- tial statement, only in subsequent ones.
Tony McMillan was next up. He, like Blackhall, was in a Catch 22 situation, Judge Carney remarked. The way he saw it, they were leaving themselves liable to prosecution for providing gardaí with false information – the maximum penalty for which is five years. Alternatively, if they had committed perjury, they could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
The judge asked McMillan if he fully understood his predicament. McMillan’s voice was barely audible as he replied ‘yes’.
He looked and sounded absolutely terrified. Yet he stuck to his story that either he could not remember what happened that night – citing the familiar drink and drugs excuse – or that gardaí had put words in his mouth.
Liam Keane sat a few feet away from the witness box. With neatly combed hair, baby-faced features and dressed in a smart suit, he was in stark contrast to the succession of tracksuited witnesses. By the time Behan was called to the stand, the word ‘intimidation’ hung over the court like a knife. But it was not expressed, let alone proved, that any intimidation took place.
There were now two conflicting versions of the killing of Eric Leamy – but the only one that counted was that given on oath. If the witnesses were in fear of something, clearly that fear was greater than the threat of life imprisonment.
AFTER Behan retracted his statement it was all over for the prosecution. There was nothing for it but enter a nolle prosequi (no prosecution). Keane walked free, his constitutional presumption of innocence intact. In the Round Hall, I asked Keane if he had a view as to why so many prosecution witnesses denied their Garda statements. He said nothing. His mother Margaret Keane stood in front of him and said: ‘Leave him alone, leave him alone.’ Keane gave photographers the two-finger sign as they snapped him leaving court.
Under the 2006 Criminal Justice Act introduced by Mr McDowell, prior statements of prosecution witnesses may be admitted into evidence if the witness turns ‘hostile’ and refuses to give evidence in accordance with the statement, or denies having made such a statement. We have not yet seen this 2006 law used to full effect, given that it is likely to be of value only in a limited class of cases. It has so far been used only once, in a 2007 Limerick gangland trial.
But if a trial such as Keane’s came before the courts now, those statements would most likely be put before the jury and the outcome might be different.
The recent spate of gangland murders will be the first real test of the new law, should anyone ever be brought to trial.