Law professor told first garda at scene he shot a man before pulling weapon from jacket pocket

LAW PROFESSOR DIARMUID Phelan, who denies murdering an unarmed trespasser in a fatal shooting at his farm in Tallaght, told the first garda at the scene that he had shot a man before pulling the weapon from his jacket pocket, the Central Criminal Court has heard.

The leading barrister also told a sergeant that the three spent rounds in the Smith & Wesson revolver which had been fired at father-of-four Keith Conlon were “possibly crow-shot” for shooting crows and rats.

Phelan (56) has pleaded not guilty to murdering Keith Conlon (36) at Hazelgrove Farm, Kiltalown Lane, Tallaght, Dublin 24 on February 24, 2022.

Phelan is a barrister, law lecturer and farmer who owns Hazelgrove Farm, formerly a golf course in Tallaght.

Giving evidence today, Garda Kevin Curran said he was on patrol duty on February 22 when he and his two colleagues responded to a call from the control room at 1.13pm about an incident unfolding at Hazelgrove Farm.

He was aware the call related to an allegation of intruders on the farm and that a dog had been shot. The garda said when they arrived at Hazelgrove Farm at 1.18pm they were further updated by the control room that a person had been shot.

Garda Curran said when they went through the entrance gate of the farm they met a red Hilux jeep coming down a laneway at speed against them. He said Mr Phelan was driving the jeep and was alone in the vehicle.

Asked by Roisin Lacey SC, prosecuting, whether the accused had said anything to him, Gda Curran said Phelan told him a male had been shot, that he was at the end of a hill and he needed help.

The witness said the accused had a First Aid bag with him over his shoulder and he had followed Phelan down the field in the direction of where the injured party was lying. He said three farmhands were sitting on a bank in a distressed state.

Gda Curran said Mr Conlon was lying on his back with his eyes rolling and saliva coming from his mouth. He said the trespasser was hyperventilating and that he was clutching onto the grass with his hands and pulling clumps out of the ground.

The witness said he could not see any blood as Mr Conlon was lying on his back so he didn’t know where he had been shot. One of his colleagues, he said, had asked the accused where Mr Conlon had been shot and Phelan replied: “I don’t know”.

Gda Curran and the accused turned Mr Conlon on his side and they observed a gunshot wound to the back of the head. He said there was also blood gushing from the back of the head.

The witness said he and the accused took powder from the First Aid bag to stop the bleeding and put it on the back of Mr Conlon’s head.

Gda Curran said he asked Phelan who had shot Mr Conlon and the accused replied: “I did”.

The garda said he asked Phelan where the gun was and the accused said “I have it here”. At this point, Gda Curran said Phelan pulled a small black revolver from the pocket of his jacket and threw it to the side, away from where the injured man was lying.

The Smith & Wesson revolver was shown to the jury.

Gda Curran said “when he told us he shot him I told him to step back” from Mr Conlon.

Under cross-examination, Gda Curran agreed with Sean Guerin SC, defending, that the accused was clearly hurrying towards Mr Conlon when they met him at the gate and that he had urged them to come quickly with him before they all ran across the field together.

He also agreed he and the accused had been kneeling beside Mr Conlon administering First Aid.

Gda Curran further agreed with counsel that when the conversation occurred about who had shot Mr Conlon the accused had “immediately admitted” he had done it. He also agreed that when the accused was asked for the gun he said he had it with him.

The witness agreed that Phelan was “surrendering the weapon” to gardai when he threw it on the ground.

Garda Andrew Crowley testified he was with the previous witness and another colleague in the official garda patrol car that day. The witness had encountered a group of individuals at the main gate and one of them told him he had been with Mr Conlon that day. He said the man’s name was Kallum Coleman and they had a conversation, where he ascertained that Mr Conlon was also known as ‘Bono’.

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Under cross-examination by Mr Guerin, Gda Crowley agreed that Mr Coleman told him that his dog had been shot dead. He agreed Mr Coleman then told him that he and Mr Conlon had come onto the land “where an incident had subsequently occurred to confront Mr Phelan”.

The garda also agreed Mr Coleman had told him that the accused had been shouting at him to “get back”. He further agreed that Mr Coleman had told him that the accused had “let off shots as he turned”. He also agreed that Mr Coleman “told him immediately after shooting the dog that Mr Phelan had said to him we didn’t see you”.

In re-examination, Gda Crowley agreed with the prosecution that this wasn’t the full extent of the conversation.

Sergeant Simon Whelan told Ms Lacey that he and Garda Nicola O’Connor had joined their colleagues in the field when they arrived at Hazelgrove farm, where Mr Conlon was being attended to by members of the Armed Response Unit.

He said Mr Conlon was lying on his back with his eyes open, that there was blood-coloured froth coming from his mouth and his chest was rising up and down very strongly. He said a black Smith and Wesson revolver was located about a meter or a meter-and-a-half away from Mr Conlon on the ground.

Sgt Whelan said he took the firearm and made it safe. He said it was an eight-shot cylinder and there were eight rounds loaded into it. “I noticed three of the rounds had strike marks to indicate three rounds had been shot,” he said.

He agreed with Ms Lacey that projectiles were still in the other five rounds.

Asked what he noticed about the five remaining rounds, Sgt Whelan said they were “hollowed nosed”. He said a normal bullet is pointed but hollow nosed bullets have a hollow at the top of the bullet. The width of the barrel was .22 of an inch.

Sgt Whelan said he had observed one gunshot wound to the back of Mr Conlon’s head behind his ear. He said he told the paramedics that they were hollow nosed rounds and they can cause more severe damage than pointed bullets. “It packs more punch because of the hollowness of it,” he said.

The witness said he tried to determine how many times Mr Conlon had been shot as three rounds had been discharged but the paramedics could only see one bullet wound.

“I said to Diarmuid Phelan there are eight rounds here and three were fired, do you know how many hit the injured man,” said the witness.

Asked by Ms Lacey whether the accused had made any response, Sgt Whelan replied that the accused had said “the three spent rounds that had been fired were possibly crow-shot”.

Sgt Whelan said he told the accused it was unusual to have two different types of ammunition in a gun. “At that point he went silent, he didn’t answer,” said the witness.

Ms Lacey asked Sgt Whelan if the accused had said anything about what he would be using crow shot for. “For shooting crows and rats,” he said.

The witness agreed that Phelan had indicated to him that the rifle he had used earlier that day to shoot the dog was in the farmhouse and that the accused had given permission to him to retrieve it from there.

Sgt Whelan said he found a camouflage hunting rifle on the accused’s bed. He said the rifle was loaded and he had released a small magazine from the rifle, which was also loaded. The jury was shown the rifle and the small magazine.

In her opening address Roisin Lacey SC said the jury will hear evidence that on the day in question three men including Mr Conlon had trespassed on a wooded area of Mr Phelan’s land while hunting foxes or badgers.

Ms Lacey said that Phelan told gardaí he became concerned about a dog running loose on his land towards his sheep and shot it with his Winchester rifle, whereupon he said three men immediately “exploded” from the wooded area and began threatening him.

The 12 jurors were also told by the State that Phelan said he was shaking with fear and “scrambled” up a bank to get away but when the deceased man Keith Conlon and a second man kept coming he believed they were “coming to fulfil the threats they had made”.

As they got closer, Phelan said he reached for his Smith & Wesson revolver in his pocket and fired in the air over their heads but was “stunned when one man went down”, the court has heard.

In her opening speech, Ms Lacey said she expects the defence case to be that the accused was entitled to discharge the firearm in a legitimate act of self defence. They will say that it was not done with the intention of causing the bullet to penetrate Mr Conlon’s body and that the penetration was an accidental, unintended result, she stated.

Mr Conlon, from Kiltalown Park in Tallaght, was seriously injured in the shooting incident on February 22 and died at Tallaght University Hospital two days later.

The State’s case, Ms Lacey highlighted, is that when the third shot was fired, the gun was pointed in the direction of the deceased who was shot in the back of the head when he had turned away to leave. “In those circumstances we say the accused intended to kill or cause serious injury,” counsel said.

The trial continues tomorrow before Ms Justice Siobhan Lankford and a jury of nine men and three women.