Dublin murder trial hears accused admits to firing shots

A witness has told a murder trial in Dublin that he heard two bangs and two women shouting, “Seán, don’t”, on the night of the killing.

Leon Fay gave evidence to the Central Criminal Court on Wednesday in the trial of 33-year-old Seán Ducque, who is charged with murdering a man in Dublin city in 2014.

Mr Ducque, of no fixed abode, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Kieran Farrelly (33) on October 26th, 2014 at Killarney Court in the north inner city.

However, as his trial got under way on Wednesday, his barrister Hugh O'Keeffe SC stood up to say that "the accused Seán Ducque admits that on 26th October 2014, he fired two shots from a shotgun, later found on Mabbot Lane, which killed Kieran Farrelly".

Mr Fay testified on Wednesday that he was living across the street from Killarney Court at the time. He recalled being in his bedroom around 11.30 that night.

“I heard what I thought was a firework, and shortly afterwards another,” he said, describing them as two bangs. “Then I heard some women shouting. They were distressed, shouting, ‘Seán, don’t’. There were two females.”

He said he also heard a male voice say something like, “I’ll meet you around the back”, before seeing the two women running together. He and his brother went down to see if someone had been shot. “I looked over and saw a body lying down on the ground so then I climbed over the railing to see if I could help,” he recalled. “The man who had been shot was talking to me. He just said, ‘help me’ and that was it.”

State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy carried out a postmortem on Mr Farrelly. She testified he had been the victim of a fatal shooting, sustaining two shotgun injuries – one to the eye and one to the chest.

“Either would have proved fatal,” she said.

Dominic McGinn SC earlier opened the case on behalf of the State, explaining that the prosecution case was that Mr Farrelly was murdered. He said a Garda search of the area had turned up a discharged shotgun cartridge and that the accused was located shortly after 6am in nearby Mabbot Lane. A sawn-off, double-barreled shotgun was found in a wheelie bin on the lane, along with another discharged cartridge.

The barrister said that analysis of the gun found that Mr Farrelly’s trunk wound compared with a test shot from two to three metres away, and that the eye wound compared with a shot from a distance of a metre or less.

“Mr Ducque has accepted that it was he who fired the shots,” said Mr McGinn. “Nevertheless the prosecution have to prove he’s guilty of murder.”

The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul Butler and a jury of six men and six women. It is expected to last two weeks.