Murder trial: Girls say they overheard admission

A Limerick murder trial has heard from a number of schoolgirls who said they heard one of the accused men admit his part in the killing of a 43-year-old man.

The teenagers, who cannot be named due to their age, were giving evidence to the Central Criminal Court during the trial of three men charged in connection with the death.

Seán Flanagan, aged 28, and Paul Colbert, aged 46, of Lenihan Avenue, Prospect, in Limerick City are charged with the murder of Gerard McMahon on Jan 18, 2012. They have pleaded not guilty to murdering him around 12.30am outside another house on Lenihan Avenue.

Ian Flanagan, aged 24, of the same address as his co-accused has pleaded not guilty to two counts of assisting an offender on the same date. He is accused of removing a CCTV recording device from their house, knowing it might form evidence in a prosecution.

The girls testified that they were in a Limerick shopping centre on the evening of Jan 18. One of the girls said she knew brothers Seán and Ian Flanagan, and they bumped into them there. The other girls did not know the two men.

One teenager said she overheard the two men they met talk to her friend about what happened that morning. “They said that they stabbed the fella and one of them had a hatchet. That one of them had two knives in their hands and that the other fella hit him over the head with the hatchet.”

The trial continues this morning before Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan and a jury.