Shooting victim admits 'hatred for gardaí'

A shooting victim has agreed at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that he has a number of previous criminal convictions and "a hatred for gardaí" to whom he often gave false information.

Paul Reilly also agreed with defence counsel, Mr Michael O’Higgins SC, in the trial of a man on a firearms charge, that he funded his drug habit through a life of crime and that he stole "from anyone and anything".

He said he couldn’t remember how many robberies he carried out in a day, but admitted he had carried out "more than 100 robberies" and could, perhaps, have carried out "more than 500" altogether.

He told Mr O’Higgins that he made a total of €40,000 from all the robberies he carried out while on drugs.

Mr Reilly (aged 27), who was under continued cross-examination by Mr O’Higgins (with Mr Shane Costelloe BL), had also earlier alleged that prison officers murdered his father while he was in custody but accepted that following an investigation nobody was prosecuted as a result.

He said, however, that although nobody was ever charged he still believed his father had been killed by prison officers. "That was what I was led to believe as a child," he said.

Mr Gary Hutch (aged 25) of Sherrard Street Lower, Dublin 1, has pleaded not guilty to possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life at Colburg Place, Seville Place, on December 8, 2006.

Mr Reilly agreed with Mr O’Higgins that after he "came round" following the shooting he called the gardaí in order to change his statement in which had named Mr Hutch as the gunman who fired at him.

"I told them the truth because I didn't want to see the wrong person go to jail," he said.

Mr Reilly, who was given an eight-year prison sentence after he stabbed five people at the Point Depot, accepted that he first got into trouble with the gardai at 13 years of age after he stole a car.

He agreed he also had convictions for robbery, larceny, numerous road traffic offences, public order offences, giving a false name to gardaí and failing to appear for a court hearing.

He agreed with Mr O’Higgins that he was convicted of possession of knives after he was released from his eight-year jail term but he said they were "for my own protection".

He admitted that as well as stealing to fund his drug habit, he sold cocaine and heroin but said he would never sell them "to kids".

When pressed by counsel if he would sell these drugs to a 15- or 16-year-old he accepted he would.

He agreed that he would often again meet his customers and see them as "strung out as him" and accepted that it wouldn’t occur to him that he was responsible for the state they were in.

Mr Reilly said he couldn’t give the details of the robberies and other crimes he committed because he said he either couldn’t remember or it could possibly get him into trouble.

"I could have been in heaven at times and I wouldn’t have known," he told Mr O’Higgins.

Mr Reilly said he first started taking drugs as a 13-year-old when he took LSD, prescription drugs and "ecstasy". He said he later graduated to "heavier drugs" and was eventually taking heroin or "crack" cocaine three times a day.

He said that the most he ever made from one crime was €4,500 when he stole from a foreign-registered car, which he said he often stole from because he knew the owners were on holiday.

He admitted that it wouldn’t have occurred to him at the time that he had ruined somebody’s holiday.

Mr Reilly denied ever injuring anyone during a robbery "to my knowledge" and denied ever using firearms but accepted that he possibly used knives, hammers and syringes. He agreed that he threatened people on the street with hammers to get money from them.

Mr Reilly accepted that he was a violent person in the past, that he was violent to get drugs and "probably" violent during robberies.

The trial continues before Judge Frank O’Donnell and a jury of three men and nine women.