Andrew Carey
at the Special Criminal Court
FORMER McCarthy Dundon gang associate, Gareth Collins who is a brother of State witness April Collins – the mother of three children with convicted criminal Ger Dundon – is to give evidence this afternoon in the trial of two men accused of the murder of Roy Collins in 2009.
Wayne Dundon (36) and Nathan Killeen (24) both deny the murder of Roy Collins on April 9, 2009.
It is alleged that Nathan Killeen was the getaway driver for the gunman and that Wayne Dundon ordered the hit Addressing the three judge, non jury Special Criminal Court in Dublin this Monday morning, prosecution counsel for the State Michael O’Higgins SC said that he had a number of witnesses to present before the court and that would take the trial up until lunch-time.
Mr O’Higgins told presiding Judge, Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley that this week would be made up primarily of witnesses and evidence that made up the “meat of the case”.
Giving regard to that, Mr O’Higgins said that he intended calling Gareth Collins to give evidence in the afternoon.
This Monday morning, evidence has been heard of the first responders to the murder scene on the day Roy Collins was shot.
Steve Collins, Roy’s father, told the court that he first became aware of the shooting when a bar man from his pub came to his office and said there was a “fella bleeding next door”.
Mr Collins told the three female judges that he went next door to the Coin Castle Amusements Arcade run by his son.
Bleeding, gasping for breath and bent over on his hands and knees is how Steve Collins found his son. He noticed his back was covered in blood, a bullet and the keys of the arcade on the ground beside his son.
Steve told the barman to alert the emergency services and the gardai.
As Roy Collins gasped for breath, he told his father that he was shot and in severe pain and that he loved him. He didn’t know who shot him.
The court heard that Steve Collins stayed with his son and tried to comfort him as best he could until the ambulance crew arrived.
Gda Stephen Kelliher told the court of how he was despatched to a report of a road traffic collision at the Roxboro Shopping Centre and was the first to arrive to Roy Collins after he was flagged for assistance. He found the 35-year-old father of two bent over on his hands and knees and bleeding from an exit wound on his back.
Gardai, including gda Deirdre Foley-Collins and retired det gda Sean Lynch all told of arriving at the scene.
Detective Garda Brian O’Connor told the court of also being despatched to the scene. He also told the three judge court that two days after the shooting he reenacted what was believed to have been the getaway route taken by the gunman and his driver.
Outlining the route driving from the Roxboro Shopping Centre to Mill Lane where the burnt out 2006 Dublin registered Mercedes was found to taking flight on foot over the railway tracks to Garryglass and Hyde Road, Det Gda said hat the journey took over 13 and half minutes between driving, running and jogging.
The trial also heard from a Limerick taxi driver who picked up two girls from Broad Street on the morning of the shooting.
Phillip Earls was driving his taxi and was despatched by the office at Tower Cabs to collect two girls at an address there.
He also described how the young girls told him that he was to pick up two men at the Galvone Post Office in Roxboro Shopping Centre shortly after 11:15am.
Mr Earls said that the first man came to the back door of the taxi and opened it but closed it again and said he was “going to the loo in the Steering Wheel pub”.
A short time later, the two men arrived to the car and they left and went to Hyde Road where one man, dressed in a grey hoody and black tracksuit pants, got out and entered a house with “large black and white walls”.
The man returned and they drove to a “yellow house on Crecora Avenue with black horses heads on the pillars”.
Mr Earls said that both men got out and he drove on the O’Malley Park where he dropped off the two girls and collected his €16 fare.
Peter Slevin, a resident near Mill Lane, told the court of leaving his home on the morning of the murder and finding the burnt out Mercedes at the end of the road.
The trial, which had been adjourned last week for the funeral of Nathan Killeen’s mother to take place, continues before the three female judges of a packed Special Criminal Court where Dundon’s wife Ann and Killeen’s sister Ciara watch on from the high security gallery.
