Witness admits lying in murder case

A former member of the defence forces who worked as a security guard with John Crerar on the night Kildare woman Phyllis Murphy disappeared has told a jury he lied to gardai when he provided an alibi for Mr Crerar back in 1980.

The witness, Mr Patrick Bolger, said he retracted his first account when he was arrested and re-interviewed in 1999 as a suspect in the murder.

A garage owner has separately alleged that Mr Crerar approached him in January 1980 asking him to cover for him on the night Ms Murphy disappeared.

It was the 12th day of the Central Criminal Court trial of John Crerar (aged 54), a father-of-five, of Woodside Park, Kildare, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Philomena ('Phyllis') Murphy (aged 23), on a date unknown between 22 December 1979 and January 18 1980, within the state.

The prosecution alleges that Ms Murphy "disappeared" at a bus stop opposite the Keadeen Hotel in Newbridge, Co. Kildare sometime shortly after 6.30pm on December 22 1979. Her body was found naked and strangled under spruce trees close to the Wicklow Gap 28 days later.

Mr Patrick Bolger said that in December 1979 he was on free discharge from the army and working as a security guard with Provincial Security at the Black & Decker plant in Kildare. The accused, a former army sergeant, was also working with Provincial.

Mr Bolger said that he spent the afternoon of December 22 shopping with his wife and family in Newbridge. On the way home, five of them went to McWey's pub for "a couple of drinks".

John Crerar was there. Mr Bolger said he himself left at about 6.40pm, went home and had his tea and then changed into his uniform and went to work, arriving at the Black & Decker plant at "around 8 o'clock" - "it could have been five or three minutes past 8."

Mr Crerar was supposed to be there too, he agreed with prosecution counsel Mr Michael Durack SC. Instead, he was there on his own. He said Mr Crerar "turned up at around 20 to nine or so".

"He pulled up outside the security hut in his car and said there was something wrong with it", Patrick Bolger said. He said the accused told him that he had hit a bump in the road and the battery fell out. He said Mr Crerar got out of the car, lifted the bonnet and "did something with the battery" and then shut down the bonnet. "He said, 'I'll be back after a while, I'm going down to O'Leary's to play Darts', and then he went off."

The witness said John Crerar was not wearing a uniform at the time. "He came back about 25 or 20 to 11 that night" he told the trial. He said when Mr Crerar arrived back, he sat down in a chair in the security hut and fell asleep for a while. "He had a few drinks - I knew he had a few drinks because I saw him having a couple in McWeys", Mr Bolger said.

He agreed with Mr Durack that he had not given that account when he was interviewed by gardai in 1980. Asked what account he did give, he replied, "I couldn't tell you."

He said he "told what happened" when he was interviewed "this time".

Mr Bolger disputed Mr Crerar's own account to gardai. He denied that Mr Crerar had arrived at the Black & Decker plant at 8.05 or 8:10pm and he denied that Mr Crerar had left at 10:30pm to collect a turkey in O'Leary's pub, or that he had sold the turkey to Mr Bolger.

Mr Durack put it to the witness that the accused had also told gardai that Mr Bolger left the factory at some stage to go for a drink in the NCO's mess. "No, that's a lie, I didn't go to the NCO's mess", Mr Bolger said.

He said he left the factory at 10:55pm to go to get "a bottle of minerals down in the town". He said he was gone "only 20 minutes". He thought he bought the minerals in "a gambling arcade" in the town.

Asked why he gave a different account in 1980, he said he did not know.

Under cross-examination, Mr Bolger denied that he drank anywhere else on the evening of the 22nd. Mr Roger Sweetman SC, defending, put it to him that he was contradicting a statement of his own wife, who allegedly said he had went to another public house for a drink after McWeys. The witness said his wife was wrong.

He denied that the conversation with Mr Crerar about the car battery took place just after 8pm. He also denied that the route he said he took to buy minerals at 10:55pm was the longest route from the Black & Decker plant into the town. It was "the handiest route", he said.

He denied that instead, he had went to the NCO's mess and had "spent a good spell there that evening".

Mr Sweetman put it to the witness that he had made a total of four statements, two in 1980 and two in 1999, when he was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Phyllis Murphy.

He agreed that he told lies to the Gardai in 1980. In 1999, he said, he "told them the truth".

Mr Sweetman put it to him that he was a man who told lies. Mr Bolger disagreed. "I am under oath now and I wouldn't lie under oath", he said. He agreed that he was saying that what he did in 1980 was not proper. "I was wrong, I was wrong", he said.

He agreed that he was not in a comfortable position when he made two new statements in 1999. He had only just come out of hospital, he said, and was taking tablets, which he was still on. The Gardai had arranged for him to see a doctor while he was under arrest.

Patrick Bolger denied that he was trying to "shift the focus" or "point the finger at someone else", as counsel suggested. "I told them the truth about what happened that night, I was telling the truth", he said. He denied that he was "an admitted liar, who lied in 1999 and is lying now".

Under re-examination by Mr Durack, prosecuting, the witness agreed that a doctor had extracted blood from his arm when he saw him on the day of his arrest.

Another prosecution witness, Mr John Dempsey alleged that John Crerar approached him in January 1980 asking him for cover for around 7pm on December 22nd 1979.

John Dempsey told the court that in 1979, he had a garage business in Fairview, Kildare, "not far from Black & Decker". He said he remembered that in December 1979, John Crerar traded in a Hillman Hunter and bought a Datsun from him. On the day John Crerar traded in the Hillman, there was somebody with him. "For a moment there I thought it was Mr Bolger but I'm not sure", Mr Dempsey said.

Sometime after he re-opened the garage on January 6 1980, Mr Crerar approached him

and asked him what times the garage opened and closed at. "He wanted to know what was the latest time that we had opened the garage in and around the 22nd December", Mr Dempsey said.

"At the time, I made a statement to the gardai because I was concerned about the inference that he wanted me to make about this time for him", he said. "His discussion was that he was having a kind of problem in his own house".

"He wanted me to say that at a particular time, that he was going to be in the garage on this date, which I did not agree to", he told counsel.

Mr Dempsey said that from his own recollection now, he thought the time the accused was concerned with was "in and around 7 o'clock".

"We were working late at that time and he must have known it and there would have been activity in and around the garage at that time", he said.

He said Mr Crerar "seemed to be very agitated" when he spoke to him. "He was very concerned when I explained to him that the police had asked me a lot of questions about his old car in particular, the Hillman Hunter".

Cross-examined by Mr Sweetman, defending, Mr Dempsey denied that he provided an alibi service along with a garage service. Mr Sweetman put to him a memo written by gardai in 1980. The memo noted an interview with Mr Dempsey on January 15 1980. The memo records that Mr Dempsey (recorded in the memo as a Mr Delaney) told gardai that he had told John Crerar "that if he needed any cover for December 22nd 1979, he was welcome to call me".

Mr Dempsey denied that he had offered any cover. "Mr Crerar approached me in relation to that period of time and I contacted the gardai - that's what happened", he said. If the memo recorded him as being the one who made the offer it was "an error", he said.

Mr Sweetman put it to him that it would be an extraordinary thing for a garage man to do, to offer an alibi. "I would say it's extraordinary for a customer to approach a garageman and ask him to cover for him. I'm a long time in this business and nobody has ever done that to me before", John Dempsey replied.

Mr Dempsey also told counsel that he did not recall John Crerar coming to the garage with a problem with the battery in his Datsun. If it did happen, it should not have, he said, because the Datsun had just been bought from a "reputable" dealer in Rathmines, and came "guaranteed" and with "a full service record".

The case continues tomorrow before Mr Justice McKechnie.