A witness to a killing broke down in court yesterday as he described how a lone gunman shouted "Merry Christmas" as he shot a man dead.
Mr Patrick O'Reilly told the Central Criminal Court that St Stephen's Day 2001 was a day he would never forget as he saw a gunman get out of a car and shoot another man in the head in front of him.
The witness said he was just 20 yards away from where father of five Mr Joseph Cummins was shot dead. "What I saw I'll never forget," he told the jury.
He said he was outside the cab office on High Street, Tallaght, in Dublin when a Peugeot car pulled up. A man got out of the passenger side and, armed with a handgun, walked three paces towards Joseph Cummins.
"And he basically shot him in the back of the head as he shouted 'Merry Christmas' ", he told prosecution counsel Mr Tom O'Connell SC. "I said 'Jesus, that man's been shot dead' because I knew when he hit the ground he was dead." The witness said the gunman fired another shot into the deceased as he lay on the ground. He continued: "I said f... me, I'm not going to let that happen in front of me" and he noted down the registration number of the car.
He then went into the cab office and shouted out the number to the base control inside. When he went back outside the car was gone. "Base control gave me a pen and paper and I wrote down the registration number of the car and the make," Mr O'Reilly told the jury.
Questioned by Mr O'Connell as to how far away from the shooting he was at the time he replied: "Twenty yards away from where the man was shot, so it was easy to see a gun in his hand." Asked if he noticed what the gunman was wearing, he replied the light was not good but he saw a white baseball cap on his head.
After the shooting, the gunman walked back to the car - "he didn't run". The car drove off in the direction of the Abberley Court Hotel.
Mr O'Reily was giving evidence on the second day of the trial of Mr Shay Wildes (35), Corbally Park, Blessington Road, Tallaght, who denies the murder of Mr Joseph Cummins (48), Donomore Crescent, Tallaght.
The trial continues today .