THIS is the moment four Limerick men came under fire during a revenge shooting for a machete attack in Moyross.
The dramatic image, captured on CCTV, was admitted in evidence during the sentence hearing of a 20-year-old who carried out the shooting to clear a €100 drug debt.
Adam O’Dwyer of Abbey View, Island Road, Limerick pleaded guilty at Limerick Circuit Court to the possession of a double barrelled shotgun with intent to endanger life on April 15, 2015.
Gardaí were alerted to a firearms incident near a laneway between Moyross Avenue and Dalglish Park where Pa Roche (25) was found in a state of shock and with pellet wounds to his face and body.
He had been drinking with friends in the laneway when a car reversed up the road and shots were fired from a back passenger window.
Roche was hit by the two shots but was coherent despite having consumed alcohol.
He was transferred to hospital but discharged himself when Gardaí returned to find out about his condition. The other three youths who were with him at the time were not injured.
Prosecution Counsel John O’Sullivan produced three CCTV images showing four men drinking, then crouching as the shots were fired and then running from the scene.
Mr O’Sullivan said the images showed the car reversing up the road and shots being discharged. The car speeds away and is later found burned out near a footbridge in Clonlara.
The court heard that “certain information” came to light that O’Dwyer and another man, referred to as Mr X, were alleged to have been involved in the shooting. It was claimed that Mr X was attacked at his home by two men with a machete but the incident was not reported to Gardaí.
Adam O’Dwyer was charged after he made admissions but Mr X was not prosecuted as nothing of evidential value emerged from the Garda investigation.
O’Dwyer told Gardaí he was put under pressure to carry out the shooting after he was given three hours notice in phone call. He was brought to a petrol station in Corbally where he got in to a stolen car and was given the firearm.
He initially thought he was to drive the car, but after Mr X threatened to shoot up his mother’s house, he became afraid and the took the gun. They were tipped off that Roche, the intended target, was drinking with friends in the laneway where the shooting occurred.
O’Dwyer acknowledged to Gardaí that he could have killed someone but the shooting was his “last one and I won’t be doing it again as I don’t want my family to be falling in to it”.
He said that he owed Mr X €100 and was under severe duress – a factor that Mr O’Sullivan took in to account but said that it was not enough to form a defence.
After prosecution counsel reminded Judge Tom O’Donnell that a mandatory minimum prison sentence of ten years was open to the court, defence Counsel Andrew Sexton SC asked for time to have a psychiatric report prepared
The case was adjourned to March 29 with O’Dwyer remanded on continuing bail.
