Murder accused describes accusations as 'hocus pocus'

A 29 year-old Kerry man has told a murder trial jury that to suggest he pre-planned and actively participated in his uncle’s killing was "hocus pocus, fiction" and "like something from the world of Peter Pan".

Eugene Daly (aged 29) was giving evidence in his own defence at the Central Criminal Court today. Mr Daly, of Doneen, Kilcummin, Killarney has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his uncle Mr Patrick (Paddy) Daly at Doneen on January 18, 1996.

The court has already heard that Mr Daly told gardaí his father Sean, who is now deceased, hit his uncle Paddy with an iron bar and that he disposed of his uncle’s body in a well on the family farm following a row over money and land.

Prior to his direct evidence his lawyer Mr Brendan Grehan SC told the jury that while there is no issue about the circumstances of Paddy Daly’s death, the accused is guilty only of being "an accessory after the fact".

In his evidence Eugene Daly repeatedly said that he "wanted to be a tough guy" and compared his uncle’s killing to a scene from a war movie, a western or a thriller like ‘Goodfellas’, ‘The Godfather’ or ‘Twin Peaks’. H

e began by telling the jury that for many years he "used to retreat into a fantasy world of detectives, police and cowboys movies".

He then told Mr Grehan that he had purposely implicated himself in his uncle ’s killing after his father’s arrest so that he’d get "busted".

"I was very close to my father and I couldn’t leave him suffer in jail alone," he said. "So I started to implicate myself in these matters so I’d get busted with him."

When asked why he told gardaí that his uncle’s killing had been premeditated by him and his father he said, "that was just copying the tough guys, like in Taggart".

"That was never planned or pre-meditated in any way, it just happened, it was a freak thing," he continued.

He admitted dumping his uncle’s body in a well, before cleaning away blood from the scene and hosing down the iron bar used to kill his uncle.

"You wouldn’t leave a smoking gun, all in all it was fairly amateurish, the forensics found the blood in the end, so it was all for nothing," he said.

Under cross-examination by Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley, prosecuting, the accused denied kicking his uncle during the assault and said he only told the gardaí that because he wanted to be "like Jimmy Cagney or Chuck Norris".

He said he had "cooked up" stories for the media and "whitewashed" the gardaí with details that were either "fntasy or fiction".

"I didn’t kill that man, OK I might have thrown him in the well, but the man was dead before he ever went into the well," he said.

"I’m the only cowboy that’s standing after the gunfight," he added.

One of Mr Daly’s former teachers’s gave evidence that while at school he was worried the accused would be the subject of ridicule because of the way he looked and dressed.

Mr Eamon Fitzgerald recalled the accused’s first day at school in Killarney when he arrived with his elderly father wearing an oversized man’s coat and trousers that were held up with a piece of cord or twine.

"I felt he was open to ridicule, in danger of being bullied, but was pleased he used the school uniform," he said.

During the three years he spent at secondary school, Mr Fitzgerald said the accused was never disruptive, but recorded a very low level of comprehension in examinations.

The prosecution and defence lawyers will close the case tomorrow before Mr Justice Henry Abbott begins his charge to the jury.