A man giving evidence against his father in a murder trial had to be restrained by officers after attempting to attack the accused in the Central Criminal Court yesterday. Scott Delaney, who is currently serving a life sentence for murder, was being cross-examined by defence counsel Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC when he leapt out of the witness box and lunged for his father in the dock.
Two officers had to restrain Delaney, while another protected the accused from the threatened attack.
Mr Joseph Delaney (54), formerly of La Rochelle, Naas, Co Kildare, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Mark Dwyer (23) on or about December 14th, 1996.
He has also pleaded not guilty to falsely imprisoning Mr Dwyer and detaining him against his will at Foster Terrace, Ballybough, Dublin on December 14th, 1996.
The prosecution alleges Mr Delaney murdered Mr Dwyer over the theft of 30-40,000 ecstasy tablets.
Scott Delaney, who was convicted of the murder of Mr Dwyer in 1997, told the court he arranged the abduction of the dead man, but did not kill him and was serving a life sentence for a murder he did not commit.
The drama erupted as defence counsel read out a letter, written by Delaney to his father in 1997, that said prison "doesn't bother" him, that his state of mind had "changed".
Delaney, writing from Arbour Hill Prison in November 1997, told his father to "keep the faith" and that he was "doing excellent".
Delaney rose out of his seat and lunged for his father saying "he told me he'd look after me. It's hard to do a life sentence for murder. He knows the truth as well."
Giving evidence, Delaney told the court his father murdered Mr Dwyer over the alleged drugs seizure.
Delaney said he had arranged the abduction of Mr Dwyer because of pressure from his father.
"He asked me on a few occasions to set Mark up" or to get him somewhere so he could be "grabbed" and questioned "about the Es", he said.
Delaney told the court that he had arranged, through a telephone contact, to have a number of men burst into Mr Dwyer's flat and remove him forcibly to his father's house in Naas, Co Kildare, for questioning over the missing drugs.
After being brought to his father's house, Mr Dwyer was subjected to beatings by Joseph Delaney with a jemmy, he said.
After Dwyer was beaten severely and asked about the drugs, his father then said he would "have to kill him" , Delaney said.
"I was arguing with him not to kill him and he ended up giving me the slaps over it," he said. "He wasn't listening to me."
"No matter what happened that night he wasn't getting out of the house alive that night." Delaney said he later saw his father in the kitchen "doing a deal to get Mark get taken out" with one of the men who carried out the abduction.
"I didn't hear him say a price but heard him say `alright' back to him."
Delaney said he remembered being in a field and seeing the lights of a car when he "heard a shot" and later waking up in hospital suffering from hypothermia.
Later, when Delaney was in prison, having been arrested for Mark Dwyer's abduction, his father "told me they were after shooting him and how he cleaned up the house. They took all the stuff out of one room" and swopped it with things in another room and dumped clothes, the carpet and the jemmy, he said.
The abductors were paid "£5,000 for the abduction and £5,000 for Mark to be shot in the head". Mr Dwyer was found with a bullet wound to the head in a field in Dublin in the early hours of Saturday, December 14th, 1996, as well as having injuries to his forearms and upper torso.
The case before Mr Justice John Quirke and a jury of seven men and four women continues today.