THE TRIAL of a man charged in connection with the deaths of a Limerick garda and fire officer while they were attending the scene of a crash has heard that the speedometer on his car was not working.
Niall Shannon (21), Lenamore, Ballylongford, Co Kerry, denies dangerous driving causing the deaths of fireman Michael Liston and Garda Brian Kelleher at Borrigone, Askeaton, Co Limerick, on February 25th, 2007.
Yesterday at Limerick Circuit Court, Colm O’Leary, the front-seat passenger in Mr Shannon’s Audi Coupe, said Mr Shannon was driving at a normal speed but the car’s speedometer was not working.
He described putting his hands over his head before the car crashed into a recovery truck at the scene of an earlier crash. He said he knew “we were going to hit something”.
The two victims had been attending to an earlier incident involving an overturned Toyota car on the N69.
Mr O’Leary agreed under cross-examination that the obstruction on the road had “come out of the blue”.
He said he assumed Mr Shannon had consumed one or two pints that night but said he wasn’t drunk. Mr Shannon has already been convicted of driving with excess alcohol on the night of the crash.
The back-seat passenger in Mr Shannon’s car, Brendan Curtin, said the driver didn’t seem to be travelling fast.
However, the presence on the road of the vehicles at the initial crash scene came as a shock, he said.
He recalled seeing a fireman and a blue light on the road after Mr Shannon’s car had travelled around a difficult bend and braced himself for a crash.
He described putting his hands on the headrest in front of him and holding on because he knew the crash was inevitable.
He said the crash took place within seconds of his seeing the blue light on the road.
Earlier, ambulance emergency medical technician Andrew Connaughton said he was on the scene when the crash happened and attended to one of the emergency workers who died.
Mr Connaughton said he did not see the Audi coming.
After the crash, he saw a reflector jacket and debris going up into the air and saw a man’s body straddled across the car with his face turned sideways.
He said the car hit the tow truck and the body which had been on the car ended up landing on a ditch.
Mr Connaughton told the court he could not believe what he had seen. He did not know where the Audi had come from.
He recalled going to the body of Garda Brian Keller but saw no signs of life.
He said he remembered tears coming down his face at that stage. “There were tears coming down my eyes . . . there was no life . . . nothing,” he said.
The trial continues today.