ERU fired shots that killed Carthy, detective says

The officer in charge of the crime scene at the Abbeylara, Co Longford, siege has said the weapons of local gardaí were never collected for examination after Mr John Carthy was shot dead by members of the force.

The chairman of the tribunal, Mr Justice Barr, put it to Det Sgt Patrick Ennis that it was possible that a shot could have been fired from one of the weapons of local officers and missed and that the cartridge could have been taken by somebody who wanted to conceal the fact.

Sgt Ennis, who was the crime scene manager at the April 2000 siege, told the chairman that the guns of local officers were not collected for examination because it was clear that the four shots that were fired at Mr Carthy had come from the weapons of members of the Emergency Response Unit.

On the possibility that shots could have been fired by local gardaí, as well as by ERU members, Det Sgt Ennis said: "That is something I didn't consider, based on what I was told at the time . . . that the shots were fired by the Emergency Response Unit officers."

Mr Justice Barr put it to Sgt Ennis that the possibility of risk of concealment might be there in relation to any possible missed shot. He asked the garda if it had never crossed his mind that the weapons of local officers should be examined if only to rule out the possibility of missed shots.

"A certain amount of trust has to \. I was told nobody else had fired apart from the ERU," Sgt Ennis replied.

Under questioning by Mr Raymond Comyn SC, for the tribunal, Sgt Ennis said Supt Joe Shelley was his main source of information at the siege.

He added that, while no discharged bullets had been recovered at the scene, four 9mm discharged cartridge cases had been found. These had caused Mr Carthy's death.

Det Sgt Oliver Flaherty was a member of the ERU at the time. He was at the siege but did not fire his weapon. He said he saw the first shot being fired by one of two ERU members and heard the other three shots coming from an area where two ERU men had taken up positions.