Counsel for a man accused of murdering his partner's son will argue he acted in self defence or was provoked into firing a shotgun, a jury has been told.
In the Central Criminal Court, Mr Patrick Murray (43), has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his partner's son Ian O'Connor (21), otherwise known as Ian Dixon, at his home in Moyrath, Kildalkey, Co Meath on December 6th, 1999.
The jury heard that Mr Murray fired a shotgun when his stepson rushed into his bedroom "in something of a fury" after hearing that Mr Murray had allegedly pushed his mother downstairs.
Mr Murray later told garda∅: "I just wanted to stop him, to wing him." During evidence to the jury, he was asked what he thought Ian was going to do. He replied: "Oh, he was going to kill me; of that, I have little doubt. Tensions had been quite high - I was in danger."
Mr Murray, a licensed firearms dealer, also told the court he was not particularly familiar with firearms, and was a dealer in ammunition, not firearms.
Mr Sean Moylan SC will give his closing speech today after which Mr Justice Liam McKechnie will address the jury before it retires to consider a verdict.
Yesterday, in the closing speech on behalf of the DPP, Mr Michael Counihan SC told the jury that self-defence would probably be raised by Mr Murray's lawyers, who would argue that he took up the shotgun, loaded it, and fired it "in order to stop a greater harm being done to him by Ian. I submit to you that you should reject that as absolute nonsense; that could not be the case," Mr Counihan said.