The defendant in a murder trial said yesterday he had no reason to kill his victim. He agreed that had he not shot the man he is accused of killing, he could have shot someone else.
Andy Wall (22), of St Patrick's, Fortunestown Lane, Jobstown, Tallaght, Dublin, said he accepted that Mr John McCarthy, the man he shot in Tallaght on July 15th, 1996, had nothing to do with an earlier hit-and-run incident in which his brother was knocked down. He denied he had gone out "to get someone" after the incident.
Wall has pleaded guilty to manslaughter but not guilty to the murder of Mr McCarthy (35) at a halting site at Fortunestown Lane, on July 15th, 1996. He has also admitted having a .22 sawn-off rifle and ammunition for an unlawful purpose but denied having the rifle and ammunition with intent to endanger life.
A jury in the Central Criminal Court heard Wall give evidence that he "just wanted to frighten them and get them to tell me the truth on who did it". He went with three other men to a field in which members of the McCarthy family were staying minutes after being told that "it was them in the field" that had knocked down his brother.
Wall's sister, Ann-Marie, gave evidence that she and three others, including her brother Martin, were walking outside the local community centre when a white Hiace van skidded towards them and she saw her brother "fired in the air".
She told Mr Michael McDowell SC, defending, that "everybody was hysterical" after her brother was knocked down. She agreed that some people, including herself, were shouting that it was "the McCarthys in the field" who had done it.
She agreed with Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, that she now knew that the driver and two passengers in the van were not McCarthys, and neither were they members of the travelling community.
She said that earlier the van had stopped and the driver had asked her and her sister if they wanted to go for a spin. They ran into an estate but the van followed them. A man opened the back door and said, "What's wrong with ye girls, do ye not want to come for a spin?"
Wall agreed that just before the shooting he had tried to go to hospital with his injured brother in the ambulance but the driver had asked him to get out.
He declined to say who had given him the rifle with which he killed Mr McCarthy but it wasn't a member of his family. He had not loaded it himself, he said, but he agreed he had to pull back the bolt to line up another cartridge before he fired each shot.
Under cross-examination by Mr Vaughan Buckley, Wall said that as he left the scene he thought he had done something "very bad" but that Mr McCarthy was still alive.
Mr Buckley put it to him that he was in a rage and that was why he shot Mr McCarthy. "Yes," the accused replied.
He agreed he had lied to gardai about drinking only two to three bottles of beer earlier that evening. He had drunk "around eight or nine bottles" and thought he wasn't drunk when he shot John McCarthy. He was "half drunk", he said.
Asked why he had lied, he said he was afraid the gardai would tell his mother "because I don't drink in front of my mother".
The court heard that Andy Wall was one of 12 children. His family were travellers who settled in Tallaght some years ago.
Mr Mervyn Ennis, a social worker who worked with travelling people from 1979 to 1992, told the court that he knew the Wall family well. The family had been "devastated" by the death of a son in a road accident eight or nine years ago. He described Wall's father as "a chronic alcoholic". His mother was the mainstay of the family and Andy was her greatest support. The accused, he said, was "a very gentle soul".
Responding to suggestions by Mr Buckley, Mr Ennis said he was not aware that the Walls were "a very wealthy family" or that two of Andy's brothers drove "1997 Mercedes".
Closing speeches will be heard today, after which the jury will retire to consider a verdict.