Man accused of Limerick murder was pallbearer at victim's funeral

A man accused of murder told the Central Criminal Court in Dublin yesterday that he had been a pallbearer at the victim's funeral…

A man accused of murder told the Central Criminal Court in Dublin yesterday that he had been a pallbearer at the victim's funeral. Mr Noel Kelly (19), who has denied the murder of Mr John Keane at O'Malley Park estate, Limerick, on July 5th, 1996, gave evidence throughout yesterday on the eighth day of his trial.

He told the court he had last seen Mr Keane when he called back to his house at around midnight on the night of the killing.

He went back, he said, to tell Mr Keane that he had made up with his girlfriend. Mr Keane was a good friend and had advised him on how to get back with her.

After getting food at the chipper, he brought it back to his girlfriend at her sister's house, he said.

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He left there at about 1.20 a.m. and went to a friend's house, where he drank beer, played cards and watched music television until he was told at "around 3 o'clock" that there were police and an ambulance on the road outside.

The accused told Mr Michael McMahon SC, defending, that "there was lots going on other than what was written down" in memos of interviews he had with gardai during his 48-hour detention.

He claimed that in the first interview he was pushed and called names. He said the two interviewing gardai sat up "as close as they could get" to him and shouted into his face.

He went on to allege that in subsequent interviews "they were worse". He said he was made stand with his hands in the air and screamed at if he let them fall down.

He alleged one garda had poked him in the chest a number of times and that he had got "a few slaps". He told the jury he got progressively more frightened and felt by the middle of the next day that if he did not start answering questions he would be hit.

By the time he made his statement to gardai, in which he admitted involvement in the murder, Mr Kelly said he was "totally devastated".

"I thought that my whole family would be arrested and put through what I had been put through," he claimed.

He made his statement in answer to suggestions gardai made to him, he said. "I was trying to placate them by giving them the answers that I thought they wanted."

Asked if any of the admissions of involvement in Mr Keane's murder in the statement were true, Mr Kelly said: "No, none whatsoever."

Mr Patrick Gageby SC, prosecuting, suggested to Mr Kelly that one of his friends was "a violent criminal" while Mr Keane, whom he chose to live with, was a moneylender who threatened people who did not pay him.

The accused agreed that "if it wasn't paid up" John Keane would follow through with threats made. But he said: "He was good to me."

Mr Kelly said that on the night of the killing he had not gone outside when he heard there was a police car and ambulance on the road because "it had nothing to do with me" and he did not know who it was.