Woman denies ‘making up’ evidence about man being hit by car

A murder trial witness has denied being mistaken when she said she saw two men hold up the deceased so he could be hit by a car.

Danielle Cusack was giving evidence for a second day in the trial of a man and his three sons who deny murdering a man who fired two shots at their Dublin home.

Paul Bradley (54) and his sons Jason (20), Dean (24), and Ryan (18), of Liscarne Gardens, Dublin 22, who have pleaded not guilty to the murder of Neil Reilly (36) at Esker Glebe in Lucan on January 18th, 2017.

Ms Cusack told prosecution counsel Paul Murray SC that she saw a car drive over Mr Reilly three times. On the second occasion, she said two men held him up and let go at the last second as the car reversed into him.

Caroline Biggs SC, for Ryan Bradley, put it to her that no other witness saw this. Counsel suggested that it did not happen.

Ms Cusack replied: “I saw what I saw and I have to live with this for the rest of my life.”

Ms Biggs also put it to her that CCTV footage suggested the car could not have been at Esker Glebe for more than about 20 seconds.

‘Do the right thing’

The witness said her memory could be wrong on the time but she saw what she saw. “I’m not making this up,” she said, adding that she came to court to “do the right thing”.

She added: “This is serious. Do you think I want to sit here and go through all this for something that didn’t happen?”

The witness accepted that she did not mention seeing Mr Reilly being held up when she wrote down what she had seen days after the incident.

She added that she left a lot of things out of that written account and only wrote it as an exercise to help her deal with the trauma.

She gave a full statement to gardaí in August 2017, about seven months after the incident. She delayed speaking to gardaí, she said, because she was studying for her final veterinary medicine exams.

Ms Cusack had been studying for 10 years at that point, having been told for years she was not clever enough.

She sadi that despite the trauma of what she had seen, she went back college on the Monday because she could not afford to miss any classes.

Counsel for each of the accused suggested to her that her account of the man being held up was mistaken. The witness disagreed with each of them.

The trial continues.