Accused 'regretted not stealing money'

A murder accused who admitted to beating a man with a hurley regretted not robbing money from the man as he lay dying, a witness alleged at the Central Criminal court today.

Mr Joe Delaney (aged 20) told a murder trial jury that one of the accused, Mr Martin O'Leary, told his friends that he "should have taken the €100 that Doc had taken from a man near the Castle" after he described beating the victim’s head with a hurley.

Mr Delaney said that Mr O'Leary told a group of 13 men afterwards that "if he had thought at all he should have taken the money from him".

Minutes earlier the accused had described what he had done to the deceased Derek O'Connell: "He said he flaked him.

"He whacked him. His hair fell out, his face was crushed in his head, his eyes popped out. He said he turned him over to bust his teeth but his head was like jelly," Mr Delaney told the jury.

He was giving evidence in the ninth day of the murder trial of Mr Martin 'Mollie' O'Leary (aged 27) of Nutley Road, Mahon, Cork, and Mr Philip Dorney (aged 25) of Nutley Avenue, Mahon, Cork, for the murder of Mr Derek 'Doc' O'Connell (aged 27) at Blackrock Castle on Sunday, September 15, 2002.

Both men also deny intimidating seven witnesses on the same day Mr O'Connell died.

When asked by prosecutor Mr Patrick J McCarthy SC what Mr O'Leary's reaction was when he was telling them this, Mr Delaney replied: "He was kind of cool about it.

"He wasn't worried. He held up his jumper and he shook it to show us what Doc's head was like. He said he heard voices down at the river and so he threw the hurley into the river. He was building a joint then."

He told the court that Mr O'Leary seemed annoyed that he would "have to get rid of his favourite jumper" and runners after the assault: "It was his favourite jumper because it didn't sag after he washed it and he was saying now he'd have to get rid of it. His mother had just washed his runners too that morning. He had specks of blood on his tracksuit bottoms" Mr Delaney said.

He also told the court that Mr O'Leary lured Mr O'Connell to his death by telling him they were going to rob a stash of drugs hidden near the grounds of Blackrock Castle.

Before the two men left, the co-accused Mr Dorney called Mr O'Leary back and handed him a "little flick knife", Mr Delaney alleged. "It was a black and silver one. You push the handle and it flips up and down," he said.

The witness later revealed to Mr Roger Sweetman SC, defence counsel for Mr Dorney, that he had been threatened for "weeks" and "a year" after the death of Mr O’Connell. He told the court that Mr Dorney’s father and brother, Mr Phil and Roy Dorney, "threatened me and called me a rat."

"They threatened me in a parking lot". Delaney admitted that after this alleged incident his father had gone down to the Dorney family house and was arrested by gardaí after he threatened to burn it.

"We were threatened for weeks afterward. I’m being threatened a year afterward," Mr Delaney insisted.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Barry White tomorrow.