The son of a Traveller shot dead by Mayo farmer Pádraig Nally said yesterday the death "f***ed up" his whole family and that the accused man had been allowed to walk around free.
Tom Ward (20) was giving evidence on the second day of the trial of Mr Nally (62), Funshinaugh Cross, Claremorris, who has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin to the unlawful killing of John Ward, a father of 11, after Mr Ward entered his land on October 14th, 2004.
Mr Ward (20), the fourth eldest of Mr Ward's children, said that on the day of the killing, his father had been in hospital in Galway and was not well and was on medication. They decided to "take a spin" and were just driving around when they saw an old car by Mr Nally's house.
He told Paul O'Higgins SC, prosecuting, that he and his father would buy old cars, fix them up and sell them on.
He said they stopped to buy cigarettes and a bottle of Smirnoff ice from a shop before going to the Nally farm, where he said he reversed the car in and his father got out to knock at the door to see if the owner was home.
Mr Nally walked up to him and asked: "Who's gone in there?" When he replied his father was looking for the owner of the car, he claimed Mr Nally said: "He won't be coming out alive."
However, he later admitted to Brendan Grehan SC, defending, that there had been a misunderstanding and that Mr Nally had not used the word "alive".
Mr Ward said he heard a gunshot after Mr Nally walked into his shed, which was in the same direction as his father had gone. "I seen him coming round with the gun. I heard the shot," he said.
He panicked and drove out to the road but turned the car around and returned. He could not see his father. He then drove towards Headford where he told gardaí he thought his father had been shot.
Mr Ward said he suffered from memory loss and after what had happened to his father, a lot of things had happened to his family. He said he had slit his wrists, taken overdoses and tried to drive a car into a river.
Mr Ward said his father had been treated in a psychiatric unit and had had a drinking problem, but "he wasn't that bad, angry at us or anything like that". He also denied his father had been a bare-knuckle fighter.
Asked if his father had been to the Nally farm before, he replied: "That's something I don't know."
He added: "I never thought it would end up with my father getting murdered and the person who done it walking free. It f***ed up all our lives."
Asked if he knew his father had 80 convictions over 38 court appearances, he said: "No, I didn't know that."
Mr Ward denied that saying he and his father were going to the Nally farm to buy a car was a cover story. "I wasn't there to do anything wrong in this place. I wasn't there before in my life. It's the first time in my life I had been there."
The trial continues before Mr Justice Kevin O'Higgins and a jury.