Mr John Carthy walked 110 feet from the door of his house to a point in the middle of the public road before he was gunned down by gardaí, the Barr Tribunal heard yesterday. Olivia Kelly reports.
Cork-based civil engineer Mr Tony O'Keeffe outlined to the tribunal the distances between the old and new Carthy houses and the locations of gardaí at the time of the siege in April 2000.
The Barr Tribunal is investigating the circumstances surrounding the killing of Mr Carthy by armed gardaí outside his home in Abbeylara, Co Longford on April 20th, 2000, following the 25-hour siege.
Surveys of the scene, taken by Mr O'Keeffe over the last three and-a-half months, indicated that Mr Carthy walked a distance of 110 feet from the door of the old house, which was since demolished, to the road where he was shot dead by gardaí from the Emergency Response Unit.
The journey would have taken 22 seconds at normal walking pace, Mr O'Keeffe said.
However, this would not account for any stops made by Mr Carthy, he added.
The garda responsible for mapping the scene the day after the shooting told the tribunal that he did not speak to any of the gardaí involved in the incident.
Garda Gerard Scanlon told the tribunal that there were three gardaí from the ERU in the road in front of the Carthy house at the time of the shooting.
However, he accepted that there may be "some slight variance" between his measurements and the exact positions of the gardaí.
He was relying on advice given to him by another garda, Det Sgt Eddie O'Callaghan, who was not involved in the shooting and "rough maps prepared after the incident", he said.
The old house where Mr Carthy was holed up during the siege was demolished just three weeks after the shooting on the order of Longford County Council, the tribunal was told.
A local builder, Mr Michael McGuire, had been contracted to build the Carthys' new house, which was nearing completion at the time of the siege, he said.
"After the tragedy I was approached by the county council to demolish the house. It would have been on May 2nd 2000," he told the tribunal.
Mr McGuire removed the roof the following day and completed demolition on May 11th.
Photos showing scenes of chaos and complete disarray inside the old Carthy house at the time of the siege were shown to the tribunal yesterday afternoon.
The photos were taken by Det Garda Joseph McCartney on the night of Mr Carthy's death and during the following day.
A series of pictures were taken of the kitchen of the house where Mr Carthy appeared to have been sleeping during the siege.
The furniture in the room had been overturned and broken, a television lay face down on the floor and bedclothes were scattered on a couch and on the floor, the photographs showed.
A number of shotgun cartridges and a cartridge box lay on the black and red tiled floor and one of the kitchen windows, which faced out on to the road, had been smashed.
Photos of other parts of the house showed shotgun damage to bedroom walls and doors, although Det Garda McCartney was unable to say when the damage had been caused.