Manslaughter accused 'drove off before killing', court hears

A Garda has claimed that a man accused of manslaughter admitted that three men got out of his car at the scene of the subsequent killing but he drove off before anything happened because he wanted nothing to do with it.

Detective Garda Anthony Ryan told the jury that Paul Gibbons said that he later heard what happened to Mr Valeri Ranert that night and he was horrified.

He claimed that Mr Gibbons admitted that he and three others left a pub that night in his car and were “going for a buzz” to see a friend of his. They drove around for some time before he parked his car at the back of Dublin Airport.

Det Gda Ryan said that Mr Gibbons told him that the “three lads” then got out of his car after seeing a black Volkswagen Golf because “they thought they were going to have it”.

He said that Mr Gibbons said to him: “I wanted nothing to do with it. They got out. I panicked and drove back to Coolock. I later heard what happened and I was horrified”.

Det Gda Ryan told Mr Michael Durack SC, prosecuting, that he had this conversation with Mr Gibbons minutes after a formal interview with gardaí had ended and while he was supervising the prisoner’s meal.

He said that Mr Gibbons had indicated he wanted to talk, he cautioned him in the usual way, listened to what the man had to say and left the interview room to record in writing what had been said.

Det Gda Ryan said the notes of this cautioned conversation with Mr Gibbons were later put to him in another garda interview between the accused, himself and a Detective Garda David Nolan.

He did not accept a suggestion from Mr Michael O’Higgins SC, defending, that that he never had this conversation with Mr Gibbons and if there had been any conversation it had not be under caution and it had nothing to do with the case.

“I totally disagree,” Det Gda Ryan replied.

Paul Gibbons (aged 27), of Moatview Drive, Priorswood, has pleaded not (NOT) guilty to unlawfully killing Mr Ranert (aged 27) at Naul Road, Swords on April 30, 2007.

He has also pleaded not guilty to unlawfully seizing by force the Golf belonging to Mr Ranert on the same occasion.

Mr Durack had earlier told the jury that it is not the State’s case that Mr Gibbons had gotten out of the car or that he was involved in the assault but that this was a “joint enterprise” in which a number of people were “in it to do the same thing together”.

Detective Garda Ryan agreed with Mr O’Higgins that although he was in an interview room with Mr Gibbons when he had this conversation, he did not record it on video tape nor did he record it in writing during the course of the admission.

He “absolutely” refused to accept a suggestion from Mr O’Higgins that the alleged admission never happened at all and did not accept a second suggestion that if it did happen Mr Gibbons did not have his full faculties at the time and did not remember it.

“I believed he understood everything that went on,” Det Gda Ryan replied.

He accepted that when this conversation was put to Mr Gibbons in the later interview, the accused replied: “Yeah, yeah but that doesn’t matter I am doing the whole section”.

When asked by counsel what his client had meant by this, Det Gda Ryan replied, that he didn’t know, that was just the answer he gave.

He also accepted that when Mr Gibbons was asked again if he was happy that the conversation was a true account of what had taken place, the accused replied: “No I am not happy because they could have gone up to the airport in a taxi.”

“Why did you not say to him at this point, what are you talking you have already told us you were up there?” Mr O’Higgins asked the witness.

“I felt I had already established that with him,” Det Gda Ryan replied.

Mr Gibbons also told the gardaí during the course of this interview that the conversation he had with Det Gda Ryan should not have been mentioned because the tape was knocked off and because it had been a social talk.

Det Gda Ryan agreed with Mr O’Higgins that there is no question that any conversation with gardaí under caution could be confused with a “social talk”.

Mr O’Higgins told Det Gda Ryan that his client had effectively challenged his right to rely on the admission three times during the course of this gardaí interview and yet he, the witness, had not counter-challenged him.

He suggested to the witness that the reason he did not do so during the interview was because he did not want “to get into the circumstances surrounding the conversation they had”.

“The last thing you wanted to do was revisit the interview you had with Mr Gibbons over his chicken chips and the half-baked admission you got from him, for fear that the circumstances surrounding your conversation would be aired,” Mr O’Higgins said.

Det Gda Ryan refused to accept this suggestion. He said he simply asked the questions and they were the answers he got.

He told Mr O’Higgins that there was no point in him challenging Mr Gibbons over the points he raised because it was his belief that accused was “backtracking”.

“Someone makes an admission and they later regretted what they had said,” Det Gda Ryan replied.

The trial continues before Judge Tony Hunt and a jury of six men and six women.