Jury told of witness involvement in six murder plots

The chief prosecution witness in the trial of four men accused of shooting a Limerick bouncer standing trial at the Central Criminal Court has told the jury that he was involved in six murder plots both before and after the shooting.

James Martin Cahill who is currently serving a life sentence for shooting dead Mr Brian Fitzpatrick in November 2002 told Mr Michael O'Higgins SC, defending accused man Anthony Kelly, that he had written down details of crimes while in prison in 2006.

He denied that he had ever fired a handgun before the murder and insisted that Kelly had shown him how to use the gun for the shooting. He told gardaí that he had only ever fired a shotgun when shooting rabbits and a blanks gun in an armed robbery.

Gary Campion (aged 24) of Pineview Gardens, Moyross, Limerick, John (aged 27) and Desmond (aged 23) Dundon both from Ballinacurra Weston, Co. Limerick and Clare business man Kelly (aged 50) with an address at Killrush all plead not guilty to murdering Mr Fitzgerald, in the early hours of November 29 2002 at Brookhaven Walk, Mill Road, Corbally, Limerick.

Cahill said that he had been involved in five murder plots in Ireland and one in England but denied he had committed two murders in England as he had told his psychologist in prison.

He denied that his handwritten account, over 90 pages long and called "My Life of Crime", showed that he was obsessed with guns. Mr O'Higgins pointed out that in this account Cahill made numerous references to obtaining guns for people. Cahill denied this. "I never got them for other people, I got them for armed robberies." But he denied that he had ever fired them.

Mr O'Higgins once again put to Cahill that there was no three hour window in his account of the night of the killing that would have allowed him to travel to Kilrush to get a gun from Kelly.

He also said that it would have been impossible for Cahill to have met Kelly in Manchester in the days after the murder as claimed in his testimony. He said Cahill had a ticket to leave Belfast at 10.30pm on December 1, arriving in Liverpool at 6.30am the following morning.

However, Kelly was travelling from Holyhead to Dublin on a sailing that was supposed to leave at 6.30pm on December 1. It was delayed until 3.15a.m. on December 2, so, Mr O'Higgins said, they would have literally been "ships passing in the night".

Mr O'Higgins said that Cahill's sister and brother had told gardai that Cahill was a compulsive liar. He quoted from a statement made by his sister in which she said he had lied about every member of the family and had stolen from and betrayed them all in various ways. Cahill denied he had exaggerated abuse they had received as children and that he had been known as "Billy Bullshitter" in his home neighbourhood in Birmingham.

He agreed that he had been violent as a child and had been expelled from secondary school after throwing a teacher down the stairs. He had been sent to a special school after that, but according to his sister, had stolen from there as well.

He also agreed that he had dealt drugs from jail after developing a serious drug problem. He had also run up considerable debts which, he said, reached €2,000 at one point. He told Mr O'Higgins he didn't think he had asked Kelly to pay off his debts although he had asked him for money. He couldn't remember Kelly telling him to "get lost".

Mr O'Higgins told Cahill he was not the changed man he claimed to be. In December 2005, after coming forward to admit to Mr Fitzgerald's murder he threw boiling water in the face of a prison guard who Cahill said had "looked out for me".

Cahill denied that he had added sugar and soap to the water. He told jury this would make the burning worse as it stuck to the face. He said he never used sugar for this purpose but "some times I use it on my cornflakes."

He told Mr O'Higgins that the voices in his head had been telling him to attack the guard and said that he had not mentioned this to the prison governor because he thought he too was trying to kill him.

The trial continues tomorrow before Mr Justice Peter Charleton and the jury of twelve men at the Central Criminal Court sitting at Cloverhill.