A murder trial jury has been shown a video of a suspect having an epileptic seizure during a garda interview about the killing.<\/p>\n
The jury was watching the video in the trial of three Limerick men charged in connection with the death of another man near their home almost two years ago.<\/p>\n
Gerard McMahon was stabbed to death on January 18, 2012, as he arrived to visit his cousin on Lenihan Avenue, Prospect in Limerick City.<\/p>\n
Se\u00e1n Flanagan (28) and his uncle, Paul Colbert (46), of Lenihan Avenue have pleaded not guilty to murdering the 43-year-old.<\/p>\n
Se\u00e1n Flanagan\u2019s brother, Ian Flanagan (24), of the same address, is accused of removing a CCTV recorder from their house, knowing it might form evidence in a prosecution. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of assisting an offender.<\/p>\n
The Central Criminal Court jury was today shown videos of some of the interviews that detectives conducted with Se\u00e1n Flanagan a week after the killing.<\/p>\n
During an interview shortly before 10pm on January 25th, one of the gardai interviewing him was heard asking Mr Flanagan if he was ok, remarking that he looked like he was going to doze off.<\/p>\n
The two interviewers were then explaining what exhibits they were going to show him, when he began to have an epileptic seizure. The gardai were heard calling for help.<\/p>\n
The trial has already heard that he was taken by ambulance to hospital and was discharged back to the garda station about two hours later. The following evening, he told gardai that he and another person had attacked Mr McMahon.<\/p>\n
John Phelan SC, defending Se\u00e1n Flanagan, requested that the footage be shown again, and asked the jury to observe the moment that one of the gardai moved his client off his chair.<\/p>\n
\u201cAm I mistaken or did your colleague have a smirk on his face?\u201d he asked Detective Garda P\u00e1draig O\u2019Dwyer, one of the officers who had been in that interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t say I saw a smirk, but I certainly did see him helping,\u201d replied the detective.<\/p>\n
The detective agreed that his colleague had previously remarked that Mr Flanagan looked as though he was going to doze off.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the time, we thought he was just not engaging with us,\u201d said the detective. \u201cHe replied: \u2018No comment\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court also heard about interviews conducted with Ian Flanagan.<\/p>\n
Garda James Hourihan gave evidence of interviewing him the following day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going behind bars for what my uncle, Paul Colbert, did,\u201d he told investigators. \u201cHe told me that he hit him with the axe.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that Mr Colbert took their CCTV device outside after he and Se\u00e1n Flanagan returned from their altercation with Mr McMahon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a tap under the window and he ran water on it to destroy it,\u201d he said. \u201cHe bagged it and threw it in the bin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI threw it over my wall in waste land,\u201d he said, adding that he eventually brought it to a house on Hyde Road.<\/p>\n
The court has already heard that gardai recovered a CCTV device from that house. It was damaged due to moisture, but an engineer managed to recover its contents.<\/p>\n
The trial continues before Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan and the jury of eight women and four men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A murder trial jury has been shown a video of a suspect having an epileptic seizure during a garda interview about the killing.<\/p>\n
The jury was watching the video in the trial of three Limerick men charged in connection with the death of another man near their home almost two years ago.<\/p>\n
Gerard McMahon was stabbed to death on January 18, 2012, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":65,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n