Man shot in head from behind, trial hears

A LIMERICK man was shot through the head from behind in a “cold, calculated and deliberate gunning down”, a court heard yesterday.

Frank Ryan was “no angel” but did not deserve to die in an execution-style shooting, prosecution counsel Aileen Donnelly said.

Gary Campion (25), of Pineview Gardens, Moyross, Limerick, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Ryan (21) in Moyross on the evening of September 17th, 2006. Mr Ryan died instantly from two gunshots to the head, one from inside the car and one when he was lying on the ground near his home at Pineview Gardens, the Central Criminal Court sitting at Cloverhill was told yesterday.

Both bullets entered his head near the left ear. One bullet exited through his cheekbone, another through the right temple.

At the start of the murder trial yesterday, Ms Donnelly said evidence would be produced that Campion was a passenger in the back seat of Mr Ryan’s car when he shot the victim from behind.

She described Erol Ibrahim, who was also a passenger in Mr Ryan’s red Toyota Carina at the time, as a “direct witness” to the shooting who would give evidence during the case.

Ms Donnelly also told the jury of six men and six women that they would not have “much difficulty” in deciding that Mr Ryan was murdered.

The question was whether or not he was murdered by Mr Campion.

On the evening that he died Mr Ryan had been doing nothing out of the ordinary and was “spinning around” in his car, picking up some people and dropping off others around the Moyross estate, Ms Donnelly explained.

Written evidence was produced in court which stated that Mr Ryan had “tipped and saluted” a group of teenagers just a couple of hours before he died.

At one stage he picked up Mr Ibrahim and later Gary Campion who got into the back of the car, the court was told.

She described him as a young man who met a violent death, but she was not going to present him as an angel.

“That does not matter. He had a right to life.

“We do not have a death penalty.

“We have a system of this society that we are entitled to prosecute people for a killing that has been carried out.”

The trial is taking place in front of Mr Justice Paul Carney and a jury and is expected to last two weeks.

Mr Justice Carney told the jury not to confer with anybody, even their own partners, about the case, and also told them not to be influenced by newspaper coverage.

He also told the jury that if they had any issues relating to the case they should convey them to their foreman who would, in turn, tell him.