The Special Criminal Court has ruled that a key prosecution witness can be treated as hostile after she said she could not remember making statements to gardai shortly after the killing of Josie Dwyer.
Ms Jacqueline O'Shea, Rutland Grove, Dublin, told the court yesterday that she could not remember giving a statement to gardai, which alleged she witnessed Mr Dwyer being beaten by a gang of "vigilantes", including one of those accused, Mr Ronald Byrne, with sticks and hammers.
She also said she could not remember being threatened with her life if she gave evidence.
It was the fourth day of the trial of three Dublin men, Mr Bernard Dempsey (41), Marrow bone Flats, Mr Stephen Carney (25), Dolphin House, Rialto, and Mr Byrne (40), Cremona Road, Ballyfermot, who have pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Dwyer (41), at Basin Lane, Dublin, on May 14th, 1996.
They also deny assaulting Mr Alan Byrne (26), causing him actual bodily harm and committing violent disorder on the same date.
The court ruled it was "satisfied that the contents of her [Ms O'Shea's] statement were so detailed that if they were true, they could not have been forgotten, and the loss of memory is feigned". It allowed the prosecution to treat the witness as hostile.
Mr George Bermingham SC, prosecuting, asked Ms O'Shea did she remember if she remembered telling gardai she had been approached twice by a man who threatened to take her into the mountains and "blow the head off you and nobody would know about it".
Ms O'Shea said she did not remember telling gardai about alleged threats nor anyone threatening her. "My brain is like Swiss cheese and I don't remember anything because of the drugs," she said.
Mr Bermingham read from the statement allegedly made by Ms O'Shea, that she "saw Ronnie Byrne kick Josie on the ground, the screaming of Josie is something that will never come out of my mind" . . . The beating seemed to go on for a while." Det Garda Christopher Mc Tiernan told the court he was present when the statement, as read out by Mr Bermingham, was given by Ms O'Shea to gardai.
The alleged statement said that after leaving her home at Rutland Grove at about 8.30 p.m. on the night of May 14th, 1996, Ms O'Shea went looking for someone from whom she could "score" some drugs.
"I was standing there five to 10 minutes trying to score and then saw a white van" and 15 to 20 "vigilantes" who later split into two groups and ran after Mr Dwyer and Mr Byrne. "They started beating him on the street. I could see this clearly because of the street lights. I saw them take out sticks and drop hammers out of their sleeves."
A prosecution witness, Mr Noel Lennon, told the court he saw an assault on Mr Alan Byrne by Mr Ronald Byrne which resembled "watching a kick-boxing film". Mr Lennon said Ronald Byrne behaved in a "Bruce Lee" fashion, "kicking him into the head" like a "karate expert". Mr John McCrudden QC, defending, put it to the witness that his account of the Bruce-Lee type kicking and attacking was "entirely wrong".
"How would you know, I was there," Mr Lennon replied.