A GUNMAN involved in a 21-hour house siege during which he kept firing shots from his house, which was surrounded by armed gardaí, told gardaí afterwards that he had had no intention of shooting them.
He said he had hoped they would shoot him instead when he came out of his home, armed with a shotgun. Anthony Burke (42), Crowe Street, Gort, Co Galway, denied when interviewed by gardaí afterwards that he wanted to effect a “suicide by cop”.
He said he had hoped one of them would “drop” him when he exited his house at the end of the siege at Crowe Street, Gort, between Sunday, October 8th, and Monday, October 9th, 2006.
Mr Burke denies having two shotguns and 1,400 cartridges with intent to endanger life at his home between October 8th and 9th, 2006, but admits having the firearms with intent to injure property. He denies having the guns under suspicious circumstances.
Defence barrister John O’Donnell told the second day of Mr Burke’s trial at Galway Circuit Criminal Court yesterday something happened before the siege to turn his client from “an ordinary fella into a raving lunatic”.
He said Mr Burke had started drinking heavily after the death of his father the month beforehand and had lost his job as a building labourer due to his drinking.
Mr Burke had visited three pubs in Gort on Sunday with his partner and consumed up to 12 or 13 pints, leaving his recollection of the events that unfolded later “patchy and hazy”, Mr O’Donnell said.
Mr Burke’s partner, Margaret Corless, told the jury she never felt he would harm her or her children. She admitted he had fired a shot in her direction as she fled the house on the Sunday night, and that the shot knocked plaster off the wall over her head.
The trial continues today.