Laois teen asked gran for hammer, court told

A Laois teenager accused of murder asked his grandmother for a hammer on the night in question, it was alleged at the Central Criminal court today.

The grandmother of the accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the jury that her grandson asked her for a hammer on the evening of November 11, 2003.

When asked by prosecuting counsel Mr Anthony Sammon SC if the accused had asked her for a hammer "to fix something", the witness replied: "Yes, but he often did that so it wasn’t unusual, but we couldn’t find a hammer".

"There’s a hammer usually kept in the drawer but there was a calendar over it so we didn’t get it," she added.

The 16-year-old accused denies murdering a 14-year-old youth in Co Laois on November 11, 2003.

The deceased’s body was found on waste ground on the town's outskirts around 11pm that night.

The grandmother of the accused also testified in court that he came home to her house "about quarter to six" that evening.

"It was raining, so he took off his tracksuit top, that was very wet. He put it in the laundry basket and came down for dinner," she said. "He wasn’t very hungry, he didn’t eat a lot or anything," she added.

She said she took his damp tracksuit top out from his room and hung it in the kitchen to dry. When asked by Mr Sammon if she used detergent on it, she replied: "Just a little. I dipped it in water but it was clean."

Earlier her husband, the accused’s paternal grandfather, told the jury he was shown a hammer by gardaí following a search of his garden on November 12.

"I was shown a hammer at the boundary wall at my house, behind a sheet of galvanised steel," he said.

"I never saw the hammer before in my life…my hammer is a claw hammer," he insisted.

He was shown a hammer in court and confirmed it was the same hammer he was shown by the gardaí in his garden.

Evidence was also given by Garda James Marr who found the hammer allegedly used by the accused.

He said he found it behind a sheet of steel during a search of the accused’s grandparents house. "I pulled the corrogated sheet off the wall, as I looked down, I could see a hammer," he said.

Garda Marr also told the jury that a search of one of the bedrooms revealed a bloodied towel in a box. After finding several empty mobile phone boxes, he said inside one of them was "a towel which had some blood stains which seemed to be dried".

He said he bagged and labelled this as evidence.

Meanwhile Garda Colm Hannon gave evidence of finding the body of the teenager on waste land shortly before midnight on November 11, last year.

"After a short while I came upon the body of a youth that I immediately recognised," he said. "He was cold, it was my belief that he had been dead for some time. He had severe injuries to the back of his head," he added.

Garda Hannon said the body was on a "narrow pathway, almost covered over with briars and bushes – it was a fairly secluded area".

The trial continues before Mr Justice Barry White tomorrow.