Murder trial collapses after statement withdrawn

A 31-year-old Dublin man accused of murder today walked free after his trial collapsed in dramatic fashion.

Gary Bryan, from Brookville Crescent in Tallaght, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Paul Warren in a pub in Dublin’s south inner city two years ago.

At the Central Criminal Court, the accused's ex-girlfriend Valerie White took the stand to say that she couldn’t remember the events of the night in question because she was strung out on cocaine, and that she had only told the gardaí what they wanted to hear in her statement.

The collapse of the evidence from Ms White, the state’s key witness, led its senior counsel Paul Coffey to enter a ‘nolle prosequi’ (not proceeding with the prosecution) and Judge Paul Carney discharged the jury of six men and six women.

A nolle prosequi gives the Director of Public Prosecutions the option of pursuing a second prosecution against Bryan, but such instances are extremely rare.

The withdrawal of witness statements has led to the collapse of several murder trials, most notably one involving Limerick criminal Liam Keane three years ago.

Justice Minister Michael McDowell has included a provision in the Criminal Justice Bill which will allow witness statements to be used as evidence in court even if they are subsequently withdrawn.

Earlier, the Central Criminal Court heard that Warren, 24, was drinking and playing pool in Grey’s pub in Newmarket Square on February 25 2004 when two gunmen entered wearing balaclavas and carrying handguns.

Mr Coffey, representing the prosecution, said the taller of the gunman stood at the door, while the other gunman ran after Warren.

He followed him into the pub toilet and fired three shots, missing with the first bullet, but hitting Warren in the back with the second and firing into his right cheek at close range with the third, he said.

“The prosecution case is that the second gunman who fired all three shots and the second shot that killed Paul Warren is the accused, Gary Bryan,” said Mr Coffey.

Bryan appeared in court wearing spectacles and neatly-cut hair. He was dressed in slacks and a long black jacket with a white shirt and a blue tie underneath, and was supported by a large group of relatives.

The court heard that when the gardaí arrived at the scene of the shooting, they found a large pool of blood seeping from underneath Warren’s body. No pulse could be detected and he was pronounced dead at 11.55pm, less than an hour after the shooting.

The court heard that Warren, a glazier from the St Theresa’s Gardens flat complex in the inner city, had been working on a job that afternoon. He had stitches in his head after a pane of glass fell on top of him and told his boss he needed to go to hospital to get them removed. But he went first to Grey’s pub where he met two friends.

The barman there, Anthony Andrews, said that Warren had left the pub at around 6pm or 7pm before returning to watch a Champions League match between Manchester United and Porto.

“I was talking to him, he was in good form. There was a good atmosphere, a normal atmosphere,” he said.

At around 11pm, he saw two men enter wearing balaclavas. Mr Andrews told the court that when one started firing shots, he dived down to the cellar. He was unable to contact the gardaí on his phone because there was no reception but he did hear the gunmen speaking outside.

“One of them said: ’I got him. Let’s get out of here’,” he said.

The court heard of the panic caused by the shooting, with customers screaming and running into the ladies toilet to hide.

Richard Power, who was drinking with Paul Warren when the gunmen burst in, said one of them had shouted at the customers: ’Don’t move’.

But he told the court that he was not sure about the accuracy of his original Garda statement since he had been drunk on the night and had also been drinking for around five hours before giving the statement the following day.

Anthony Carthy, who had been playing ’winner stays on’ pool with Warren earlier in the pub, said he pulled some girls back when the gunmen entered.

“I threw a few (small) stools towards the gunman at the door,” he said.