A farm worker has told a jury at the Central Criminal Court he saw a man fall to the ground after a third shot was fired by a law professor, Diarmuid Phelan, on his farm in Co Dublin.
Pierre Godreu, a French national, said through a translator he saw Mr Phelan pull a pistol from his pocket and fire two shots into the air and a third shot in the direction of a man on February 22nd, 2022.
That man was one of two strange men who earlier had come out of woodland on the farm and had followed Mr Phelan and another farm worker as they walked up a field, he said.
Mr Phelan was “really pissed off”, the other farm worker’s face was “closed” and the two strangers were “really angry”.
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The three shots were fired after Mr Phelan had told the two strangers to “go, go, get out, get out” but they did not leave, Mr Godreu told John Byrne SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The man who was shot was bleeding from the head and was asking for help, he said.
Asked what he and the other farm workers did, he said: “We were all shocked and we didn’t move.”
Mr Phelan drove to get first aid from the farm house and asked one of the female workers to call an ambulance, he said. When Mr Phelan returned, he was trying to help the injured man and police came and an ambulance, he said.
Under cross-examination by Michael Bowman SC, for Mr Phelan, Mr Godreu agreed he did not know what had happened in the woods earlier.
He agreed February was a time when lambs were being born and Mr Phelan had told him he had concerns that foxes or dogs might take the lambs.
Asked about Mr Phelan phoning gardaí while walking up the field, he said he did not know that. There would be evidence of that call, counsel said.
He agreed it was clear Mr Phelan wanted the two men to stay away.
When counsel put to him it was only at the stage of the two men continuing to advance that Mr Phelan took out his revolver, he said Mr Phelan took out his pistol “when the men keep coming”.
He agreed the three shots were fired “in quick succession”, the first two in the air. He only realised the third shot hit the man when he fell, did not get back up and called out for an ambulance. The second man ran away when the other man was shot, he said.
Mr Godreu said he was afraid the second man would come back and he ran to hide.
He agreed Mr Phelan was very protective of his farm and did not want the farm hands to speak about it to others, including when people would be on it or not. The events on the farm on February 22nd, 2022, “really darkened” his experience of living in Ireland.
Mr Godreu was one of four foreign nationals working as ‘woofers’, people who work in exchange for food and lodging, on Mr Phelan’s farm in February 2022.
A French national working in Belgium, he gave evidence on Thursday via video link from Brussels. His evidence was translated by an interpreter in the Dublin courtroom. Mr Phelan had a separate interpreter and stenographer in court.
Thursday was the second day of the trial of Mr Phelan (56), who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Keith Conlon at Hazelgrove Farm, Kiltalown Lane, Tallaght, Co Dublin, on February 24th, 2022. The court has been told Mr Conlon was critically injured after being shot on the farm two days earlier and was pronounced dead on February 24th.
Mr Conlon was one of three trespassers engaged in fox hunting on the farm on February 22nd, 2022, the court has heard.
The prosecution has said its case is Mr Phelan shot a dog belonging to one trespasser, Kallum Coleman, heated exchanges with the trespassers followed, Mr Phelan later fired two shots into the air from his Smith & Wesson revolver and a third shot penetrated Mr Conlon’s body. Mr Phelan, the prosecution contends, had the requisite intent for murder.
The jury has heard Mr Phelan told gardaí he believed, if he had not reacted immediately, “he would have got me” and was “terrified”, “stressed” and “scared shitless”.
The prosecution has said it understands the defence case as being Mr Phelan was entitled to discharge his firearm as he did; it was a legitimate act of self-defence and not done with intent to penetrate the body of Mr Conlon.
Earlier, a Garda photographer, Det Garda Maireád Coleman, said she photographed implements, including two shovels, hoes, a pickaxe, wire-cutter, handsaw and clippers, and had seen evidence of digging, in a location on the farm where it appeared the trespassers were engaged in activities.
The trial continues on Friday before Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford and a jury of nine men and three women.
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