A payment of €400 to the Garda Benevolent Fund could have spared a 41-year-old man his first conviction for assaulting gardaí but it emerged yesterday in court the money was never paid.

Neighbours complained to gardaí about a man playing loud music in his van after 5am but the man claimed yesterday his wife sent him out to his van so that he wouldn’t be making the noise at home and waking the family.

A jury at the trial of a Clondalkin man accused of pointing a loaded gun at gardaí has heard that the weapon allegedly recovered from him was “cocked, ready for use” and had its serial number erased.