Courts

Coach Pete Taylor shot ‘in mid-air’ by gunman at Bray Boxing Club, court hears

Well-known boxing figure said it was his ‘responsibility’ to ‘run at’ alleged shooter Gerard Cervi

Boxing coach Pete Taylor was giving testimony in the trial of Gerard Cervi. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Wire.

Paul Neilan
Tue Oct 10 2023 - 20:23

Well-known 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 this afternoon. 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 5th, 2018.

He also pleaded not guilty to the attempted murders of Mr Taylor and Ian Britton on the same date and at the same location. At the Central Criminal Court today, Mr Taylor told prosecuting barrister Paul Murray SC that he was at the gym on the morning of June 5th, 2018, to run an exercise class from 6.45am to 7.45am.

Mr 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 when people started arriving in the gym for the session he went to put some music on and was next to a pulling machine.

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“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. He was shooting around. As he started to shoot to one side I ran towards the gunman,” Mr Taylor told Mr Murray. “He [the gunman] was inside the doorframe with his feet on either side of the door frame, splayed apart,” said the witness. Mr Taylor said the gunman held the gun in both hands but did not enter the room.

“Everything happened so quickly. 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,” he said. Mr Taylor told Mr Murray that he did not see what happened to Mr Messett while the bullets were still “going around the room”.

“I had to run around the machines. 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,” said Mr Taylor.

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 that the bullet went into his left bicep area and then 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 being “around 5′8″ and firing at chest-height. “I remember a hi-vis vest and everything else was black,” said Mr Taylor when describing the shooter. Mr Taylor 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.

Gym-goer Eddie McCann attended to Mr Taylor until gardaí and medics arrived and Mr Taylor was taken by ambulance 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 SC, that 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. “I was looking towards where I was running with my head down but I could see where I was going,” said Mr Taylor.

Dr David Menzies, an A & consultant at St Vincent’s hospital, said he was the first medical presence at the gym and that he observed Mr Messett lying on the floor with a “pool of blood around his head” due to “injuries incompatible with life”.

Dr Menzies said he attended to Mr Taylor, who was lying injured in an alcove area at the gym but he appeared to be “as calm as his partner”, Karen Brown. Mr Taylor was assessed as having suffered a gunshot wound to his upper left arm and chest.

A drip and oxygen was administered and Mr Taylor was then assessed at St Vincent’s hospital by Dr Derek Barton, a consultant in the emergency department.

The trial before Ms Justice Karen O’Connor and a jury of six men and six women is expected to last six weeks.

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