Court proceedings: A Limerick man accused of murder left court yesterday after the case collapsed when the sixth prosecution witness denied making a statement identifying the accused man as the killer.
As Mr Liam Keane (19) grinned and hugged relatives leaving the Central Criminal Court with his "constitutional presumption of innocence intact", trial judge Mr Justice Carney said he had never before encountered "the likes of what happened in this case".
Mr Keane had denied the murder of Mr Eric Leamy, also 19, in Limerick in 2001.
Referring to the prosecution witnesses, Justice Carney warned of the possibility of a "plethora of successful prosecutions" arising out of this trial. He ordered that the entire transcript of this and an earlier, related trial be forwarded to the DPP.
The DPP directed that a nolle prosequi be entered when key prosecution witness Mr Roy Behan denied making statements identifying Mr Keane as the man who stuck a knife into Mr Leamy. The witness accepted he was a close friend of Mr Leamy and that he carried his coffin at the funeral.
Questioned by prosecution counsel Mr Shane Murphy SC, he further accepted that he was with the deceased earlier on the night of the killing and that he took his dying friend to hospital.
However, he denied telling gardaí he saw Mr Keane at the scene or that he saw "Liam Keane stick the knife into Eric Leamy just above his right hip".
Mr Behan claimed he could not remember events leading up to the killing because, he said, "I was out of my head" with drink and drugs.
Releasing the jury, the judge said: "The likes of what has happened in this case has never, I can assure you, been encountered in this court before."
He told jurors they had not heard that, during the trial, there was "violence" and "some suspicious comings and goings in and out of court" which may have breached an order of the court.
Referring to the earlier, related trial - the killing of Mr Jonathan Edwards - Justice Carney continued: "It came to me that I had tried another case arising out of the death of the unfortunate Mr Leamy. My recollection is that nobody had a failure of memory" in that case.
"I have already directed that the transcript of this trial be given to the DPP. I'm also directing that the evidence in the other trial be made available to the DPP" to see if there existed a "divergence as to what was said on oath on that occasion".
The DPP, he added, "is obviously going to investigate" the circumstances in which prosecution witnesses denied their Garda statements in the trial.
Justice Carney warned that there "could very well be a plethora of successful prosecutions yet to come arising out of these events".
During the trial, the jury heard that Mr Leamy was stabbed to death in a row over the ill-treatment of a dog by Mr Edwards, said in court to be a friend of Mr Keane. Mr Edwards was killed the following day. Another Limerick man was tried and acquitted of his murder.
During three full days of evidence in the Keane trial, six prosecution witnesses were declared hostile and one held in contempt of court after changing their proposed evidence or refusing to testify. Three were held in custody for a number of hours but later released after what Mr Justice Carney described as "collective amnesia". He warned two of the witnesses they would receive brain scans and whatever medical help was necessary to help their memory loss.
The judge also warned the witnesses they could face life imprisonment if they had committed perjury or alternatively, five years for giving gardaí false information. However, following the warning all six repeated their sworn evidence either denying they had made statements incriminating the accused, or claiming they could not remember, citing drug abuse as the reason.
On Friday, Mr Behan failed to appear in court and there was evidence in the absence of the jury that he had been assaulted at a Limerick train station en route to Dublin.
When he appeared in court yesterday, Mr Behan denied telling gardaí, in a signed statement of August 28th, 2001, that he witnessed Mr Keane sticking a knife into Mr Leamy's side. In his statement, he alleged there had been an argument over a dog and that the accused first hit the deceased with a pallet with a nail before taking out a knife. "I can't remember making no statement," he repeatedly said when prosecuting counsel Mr Shane Murphy SC put it to him that what he told gardaí was the truth.
Various statements read to the jury suggested that Mr Leamy was not armed and that he had urged the accused to put away the knife. However, all six witnesses denied making the statements and therefore they could not be used in evidence. Justice Carney repeatedly reminded the jury that "not one sentence of evidence incriminating the accused" had been adduced in the trial.
Mr Leamy's parents, Anthony and Geraldine, were in court when the charges were dropped and were being comforted in the victim support room in the Four Courts. Because a nolle prosequi has been entered, no further prosecution may be brought against Mr Keane unless fresh evidence emerges. Mr Keane, of Singland Gardens, Ballysimon, Limerick, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Leamy (19) of St Munchin's St, St Mary's Park, Limerick, on August 28th, 2001 at Lee Estate, Island Road, Limerick.