Marks on a car engine helped a ballistics expert to identify it two years after he first examined it, a garda fraud trial has been told. Det Garda Kevin Brooks said the defendant first showed him the engine in April 1994 at Rathfarnham Garda station.
The engine identity number had been erased and he was unable to restore it but he had certain marks on it photographed. He was also able to prove the engine came from a white Nissan Micra which was also in the station yard by fitting together pipes and hoses which had been cut through to remove it. He also had these photographed.
Det Garda Brooks told Mr Patrick Gageby SC, prosecuting, that in April 1996 he examined the engine in a blue Nissan van and found it was the same engine that had been in the white Nissan Micra in 1994. Cross-examined by Mr Erwan Mill Arden SC, defending, he said he had no doubt it was the same engine from the distinctive marks on it. He again had them photographed.
It was the second day of the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court trial of Det Garda John Ryan (36), Newtown Park, Blessington, Co Wicklow, who has pleaded not guilty to obtaining £260 from Garda Patrick Normile by pretending he owned a Nissan Micra engine on or about August 1994.
The jury has heard that the State alleged Garda Normile paid £280 to Garda Ryan for a Nissan Micra engine on behalf of two colleagues, Garda Pauline Reid and Garda Brendan Cahill, and the defendant gave back £20 as luck money.
Garda Barney Kelly told Mr Gageby he photographed car engine parts and the body of a white Nissan Micra at Rathfarnham Garda station on April 14th, 1994. He photographed the engine in a blue Nissan Van on November 22nd, 1996, at Garda HQ in the Phoenix Park in the company of Det Garda Brooks and Garda Reid. The indentations on a part of the engine were the same as those he had photographed in April 1994 in Rathfarnham.
Ms Valerie Evans, a teaching assistant, of Croydon, England, told Ms Una Ni Raifeartaigh, for the prosecution, that she bought a new white Nissan Micra some years ago. She insured it with Direct Line Insurance locally. Some time later it was stolen. Direct Line later settled with her by paying £5,500 for the title.