A MAN charged with having two shotguns and ammunition with intent to endanger life during a siege in Gort, Co Galway two-years ago, was acquitted by a jury at Galway Circuit Criminal Court yesterday.
He had already pleaded guilty to other charges.
Anthony Burke had admitted shooting 43 cartridges during the siege which hit Garda cars parked outside his house, street lighting, walls and a green area directly outside. He also fired five shots inside his home.
He later admitted to gardaí that he had wanted to commit “suicide by cop”, by aiming a gun at them so that they would shoot at him when he ended the 21-hour siege by walking out of his home armed with a loaded shotgun.
He said he looked out at one point shortly before ending the siege and saw so many armed gardaí outside, he felt there was no other way out. He said he made his mind up that he would rather be shot than arrested and would rather die than serve a long stint in prison.
While Burke denied the four charges before the jury he had pleaded guilty at the start of the trial last week to seven other charges brought against him in relation to the siege, including the reckless discharge of a shotgun; the unlawful possession of 1,440 rounds of 12-gauge shotgun cartridges without a firearms certificate and damaging two Garda cars and two privately owned cars in Gort on October 8th and 9th, 2006.
Judge Raymond Groarke agreed to defer sentencing to July 27th next and directed the preparation of a probation report.
Burke, (42), Crowe Street, Gort, had denied during his eight-day trial that he was in possession of two shotguns and 1,440 shotgun cartridges with intent to endanger life at Crowe Street, Gort, between 11pm on October 8th, and 9pm on October 9th, 2006.
He also denied a charge of being in possession of the shotguns in suspicious circumstances during the siege.
His defence team argued during the trial that Burke was a “good shot”, holding a “class B” shot rating, on a scale which goes from Class D to Class AA, and that if he had intended to endanger anyone’s life or shoot anyone during the siege he could have easily done so.
Top Garda officials issued press statements at the time of the siege to local and national media stating they were satisfied Burke was adept with guns and that he had no intention of targeting any particular person during the siege and that if he had, he could have easily done so.
They argued during the trial that they had used the media to play down the siege situation to try to get Burke to start communicating with them by leading him to believe the situation was not as serious as he thought.
Burke told the jury that at no time did he intend to endanger life and that at one point during the siege, he contemplated suicide because he felt he had dug himself into a hole and that there was only one way out.
A Garda marksman shot Burke in the left shoulder and he spent two weeks in hospital.
The jury took just one hour and 20 minutes yesterday afternoon to find Burke not guilty of all three charges but they did find him guilty of being in possession of the shotguns in suspicious circumstances on October 9th, 2006.
Defence barrister John O’Donnell then applied to the court to have sentencing on the single charge deferred to a later date.