‘I know how it looks... but I didn’t do it’
THE man accused of the crossbow murder of Gerald Corrigan told police “I know how this looks” after he it emerged he was “in the thick of it”on the night the pensioner was shot.
During seven interviews with detectives, Terence Whall admitted he’d lied about his whereabouts that night because he wanted to hear what evidence police had before telling them something that would “put the final nail in my relationship”.
The 39-year-old from Bryngwran, Anglesey, denies murdering Mr Corrigan and said he had been having an affair with his friend, Barry Williams claiming they had a sexual encounter within yards of Mr Corrigan’s home.
At Mold Crown Court yesterday, the jury was read transcripts of the interviews recorded with police after he was arrested on June 25.
Questions were put to Whall about phone records which showed he was using two handsets in the run up to the incident.
Whall had stopped using one of them just 30 minutes after Mr Corrigan was shot. It was 1.06am when that phone last recorded any data coming in or out.
Asked why he’d called Barry Williams three times on his other phone shortly afterwards from 1.10am, he told police it was to tell him their affair was over because he felt guilty about betraying his partner.
In interviews about the telematics from the Land Rover, Whall said he knew it had a black box but denied having anything to do with it being burned out.
He agreed with officers that the evidence put him “right in the thick of it” when the incident happened at Mr Corrigan’s home in Gof Du near Holyhead on Anglesey in the early hours of April 19 last year, but argued that his car data shows he wasn’t in a rush to leave the scene.
“I know how this looks,” he said. “I wouldn’t sit in my car for so long if I’d shot someone with a crossbow.”
Whall said when he found out about the incident, he’d agreed with Barry not to volunteer information about what they’d been doing there that night because they didn’t want anyone to know.
Whall also said he never hid the fact he was a crossbow owner and would often show them to his clients.
He said he ordered a new micro crossbow on April 11, but it didn’t arrive until after Mr Corrigan was shot.
He said he left it in its box “for ages” to show police if they came.
When they didn’t turn up until weeks later, he said he took it out of the box and set it up but never fired it.
He said in interview: “I thought the reason you hadn’t turned up was because you knew I hadn’t used it.”
Whall said he “got rid of” bolts that he’d bought that were exactly the same as the one that killed the 74-year-old because he decided he didn’t want to use the crossbow to hunt any more.
“I’m not denying I’ve ever ordered anything like that,” he said.
Whall said he would sometimes push bolts into targets at his home or into the grass by hand to test how far they would go without bending or breaking.
He wanted to see if the green ones – the same type that killed Mr Corrigan – were any better than the ones he had before.
Asked if he killed Mr Corrigan, he said: “No. Whoever had anything to gain out of his death it wasn’t me.”
The trial continues.