A man who says Mr Pat Gillane asked him to murder his wife, Philomena, told a court yesterday he had a microchip in his head and people could read his thoughts. "I know people can read my mind," Mr Christopher Bolger said. "I had a microchip placed in my skull which is connected to my mouth when I was 28."
He said he was given the "microchip" during a head operation by a brain surgeon in the Mater Hospital 20 years ago. On the second day of Mr Gillane's trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court the jury also heard details of a sexual relationship between him and his wife's sister, Ms Bridie Gordon.
Mr Gillane (35), of Glenbrack, Gort, Co Galway, has pleaded not guilty to soliciting Mr Christopher Bolger and Mr Michael Doyle in Dublin on a date unknown in January 1994 to murder his wife.
Mr Bolger said that on the last Sunday of January 1994 he was with Michael Doyle and his brother, John, and Christy Murray. They had left the museum at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, when a car approached them.
The car was driven by Mr Gillane, whom he had never seen before, he said. The driver stopped and said "Hello" to him and Michael Doyle. Then he drove on again and stopped near the junction of James's Street and Thomas Street. Mr Gillane asked them "to do a job" for him but did not say what it was.
Mr Gillane bought them a packet of cigarettes in a Thomas Street pub and drove on slowly to the nearby Basin Lane Flats. He asked him and Mr Doyle "to kill a woman who worked in a hospital", but did not say what hospital or when this was to be done. "He said he would pay us a substantial sum of money if we did this for him," Mr Bolger said.
"I called Mick Doyle aside and said what sort of a son of a bitch is this," said Mr Bolger. "I then told him `no way'. We thought he must be a homosexual, and Mick asked him if he wanted a woman".
Mr Bolger said his friend told Mr Gillane there were plenty of women around, including prostitutes, if he wanted one. Mr Gillane told them he was not a homosexual. He asked them again if they would kill the woman for him.
Mr Bolger said he then spent six months in Cork Prison and when he came out he met Michael Doyle, who told him he had seen the man on an RTE news programme. He got a copy of the Irish Independent of May 19th, 1994, and recognised the accused, whose photograph was on the front page.
He went to Det Garda Alan Baily in the Bridewell Garda station and told him all about being asked to kill a woman the previous January.
Some time after that he was in Mountjoy Jail on a sentence and was shown a video of the RTE news coverage his friend had told him about. He again recognised the man. "He is sitting here behind me", he added, indicating Mr Gillane in the court.
Cross-examined by Mr Eamonn Leahy SC, for the accused, Mr Bolger agreed a statement he made in the case had been read over to him by Det Garda Joe Breslin some hours before he began giving his evidence. He said he could not read or write too well and was "half colour-blind".He said he had been drinking the day before (on Monday) and sometimes when he drank he went into "a sort of blackout of my brain and forget what I'm going to say."
Mr Bolger agreed he was driven to the Royal Hospital about a week ago by a garda whose name he did not know.
Asked by Mr Leahy several times what the purpose of going there was, Mr Bolger replied: "Everything came back to me again the minute we walked there." He denied he had forgotten everything before going there.
The garda then drove him to the Thomas Street and Basin Lane areas. He pointed out the pub in which he claims Mr Gillane bought cigarettes in January 1994, even though "it had been repainted and all the flags taken down". Nobody told him it was the right pub.
He later went to Kevin Street Garda station with the same garda, who wrote down everything he dictated about what had come back to him. He had a "little difficulty" remembering things and he had to make sure he was right.
Asked what the garda said to him on this occasion, Mr Bolger said he had a microchip in his head and people could read his mind.
Earlier, Mrs Philomena Gillane's sister, Ms Bridie Gordon of Beechlawn House, Caltra, Ballinasloe, told the jury that Philomena confronted her about the affair after her husband revealed it to her. It caused a family row.
Ms Gordon told prosecuting counsel, Mr Edward Comyn SC, that Philomena met the accused in Lisdoonvarna in 1991 and they started going out together. Ms Gordon first met him in 1992.
Ms Gordon said her sister became pregnant and married Patrick Gillane in Knock on April 30th, 1993. Their baby was born on August 8th, 1993.
The couple lived at the Gordon house after the marriage.
Ms Gordon said she began a relationship with the accused before he married her sister. Asked if it was a sexual relationship, Ms Gordon said: "That does not come into it."
Pressed by Mr Comyn she replied: "Yes". They spent a weekend at the Rose of Tralee festival in 1992 and another in Lisdoonvarna in 1993.
"He kept pestering me and forcing himself on me," she said. He continually asked her to go again to Lisdoonvarna with him but she did not. Their affair stopped in October 1993 when she began going out with another man. Ms Gordon said Philomena learned of the affair in December 1993. "He came in this night drunk and nearly broke down the door. He told Philomena about his relationship with me and caused a big row."
Her sister then confronted her, Ms Gordon said, about going to Lisdoonvarna with the accused while he sat in the kitchen very quiet. She agreed she was questioned several times by gardai after her sister's murder and was arrested under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act.
She was held in custody for almost 48 hours.
The trial continues today.