Garda murder accused told girlfriend to tell truth about his movements

Aaron Brady, who denies the capital murder of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe, told his girlfriend to “tell the truth” after she lied to police about his whereabouts on the night of the shooting, the Central Criminal Court has heard.

Jessica King told the trial that she initially did not tell police the truth because Mr Brady was on bail and under curfew and she did not want to get him into trouble. She later realised “what this was about” and when she spoke to Mr Brady on the phone he told her to “go in and change that and tell the truth”.

Ms King also described Mr Brady as a “messer” and “a bit cheeky” and said he was always “smiling and joking”. She said he came to her house the night of the shooting and was the same as always. She agreed with defence counsel Michael O’Higgins SC that there was no “bother on him”.

She further revealed that when Mr Brady told her he had work that night from 8pm to 10pm she presumed he meant he was working in a diesel laundering yard near her home in south Armagh.

Mr Brady (29) from New Road, Crossmaglen, Co Armagh has pleaded not guilty to the capital murder of Det Garda Donohoe (41), who was then a member of An Garda Síochána on active duty shortly before 9.30pm on January 25th, 2013 at Lordship Credit Union, Bellurgan, Co Louth.

Mr Brady has also pleaded not guilty to a charge of robbing approximately €7,000 in cash and assorted cheques on the same date at the same location.

Ms King told Lorcan Staines SC, prosecuting, that she started going out with Mr Brady around September 2012.

On the January 24th, 2013, she said she went to Ridley’s nightclub in Dundalk with some friends. Her friend’s boyfriend picked them up and they collected Mr Brady along the way but he was “annoyed” that she was wearing “a boy’s hat” and wanted to know where she got it from.

She said she had expected that they would go to a house party on nearby Lough Road, where Mr Brady sometimes stayed with friends, but instead he was dropped off and she went home.

The following day they put the argument behind them and in a series of text exchanges he told her he was working that night loading a lorry.

Laundering

She understood him to mean he was working in the diesel laundering yard on Concession Road. She said she later deleted some of these messages before handing her phone to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) because she “knew things were a bit more serious” and she was “afraid of getting him in trouble with the diesel and the curfew and I just panicked”.

That evening Jade Fitzpatrick called to Ms King’s home on Concession Road and they spent the evening in Ms King’s bedroom watching a film and looking at shoes on the internet.

At 10.47pm she received a text from a second phone belonging to Mr Brady saying: “You awake babes.. Sorry other phone went dead couldn’t text you.”

She also missed a call from the same number and she text him back to say she was awake. He asked if he could call over and she said he could. He arrived a short time later, came up to her room and they watched a movie.

“We probably had the craic and that was it,” she said.

At one point she said Mr Brady went downstairs and came back and said he had seen on the news that a garda had been shot. He did not say anything else about it, she said.

Mr Brady left at between 2am and 3am when his friend, who drives a BMW, collected him. The witness could not remember if Mr Brady was communicating with anyone else while he was in her house. He was wearing a Liverpool jumper, jeans, white Air Max runners and his hair was gelled, she added.

She later noticed that Mr Brady had left behind his second phone and texted him to let him know.

The following day she missed a call from Mr Brady’s main phone at 1.33pm and received a text from him saying “ring me” at 1.41pm. When she spoke to him he said he had been stopped by the gardaí at a checkpoint. He said roads were closed off and it “could be to do with what had happened at the credit union”.

He told her he and his friend were questioned about it and he asked her to say that he was at her house “a bit earlier and left a bit earlier in case I get in trouble with the curfew”.

Afraid

Members of the Police Service of Northern Ireland called to Ms King’s house and asked if she was Mr Brady’s girlfriend and what time he was at her house. She told them he arrived at 7.30pm and left at 9.30pm.

“I was afraid of getting him in trouble over the curfew and I didn’t realise what it was about,” she said.

She said she later corrected the times.

Mr Brady arrived at Ms King’s home some time around 11pm and left, she said, at about 2.30am.

Ms King also spoke about a phone conversation she had with Mr Brady after he moved to the US. She was told something about a stolen car that he was involved with some years earlier, before he knew her.

She said she was angry about it and he told her he was “a part of it” but named two other men who he said had stolen the car. He said he had not been in the car and did not steal the keys.

Asked what would have happened if she thought he was involved in that kind of thing she said: “I wouldn’t be with him. He knew that. I just think he knew I wouldn’t put up with something like that.”

Under cross examination Ms King told Michael O’Higgins SC, defending, that in January 2013 there had been a plan that Mr Brady would buy Ms King’s sister’s car and give it to her. She said this had caused “hassle” as her parents “weren’t too thrilled about the car being bought between sisters”.

She was, she said, “sick and tired of the car” and by mid-January had decided there was not going to be any deal with the car.

She further agreed with Mr O’Higgins that Mr Brady had emphasised the need for her to tell the truth about the times when he arrived and left her house.

Jessica’s mother Alison King told Brendan Grehan SC for the prosecution that she remembered Mr Brady arriving that night while she was watching the Late Late Show. She thought that he left at about 2.45am.

One of the 15 jurors who were sworn was discharged on Thursday. The trial continues.