A JURY has retired to consider verdicts in the trial of a man accused of drugs charges and of threatening to kill or cause serious harm to a Limerick Garda Detective.
Kieran ‘Bunny’ Barry (51), with an address at Galvone Road, Kennedy Park, denies threatening to kill or seriously harm Detective Garda Dean Landers on May 3, 2019.
Mr Barry also denies charges of possession of cannabis for sale or supply, possession of cannabis, and of resisting Detective Landers in executing his lawful duties on the same date.
Following a three-day trial at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court, a jury of eight women and four men retired this Tuesday to deliberate on its verdicts.
Detective Landers gave evidence that he was concerned for himself and his family after Mr Barry allegedly threatened to kill him, his children, and his mother.
“I was worried, I’ve been in Limerick 13 years and a Garda for 15 years, but he looked me in the eyes and told me he was going to murder me, and I 100 per cent believed him,” Detective Landers said.
Detective Landers and a colleague had responded to a call of a disturbance outside Mr Barry’s home on the night in question. Mr Barry became abusive and asked Garda Landers to fight, the court heard.
“He told me he was going to murder me, and that the next time he caught me on my own he was going to slash my head off. He said he would bury me somewhere where no one would find me,” Detective Landers alleged.
“He continued getting enraged, gesturing and pointing towards me, and he told me, ‘I know where you live, you lanky prick’. He got more aggressive and agitated.”
“He was clenching his fists and he told me he was going to give me a slow death and that he would give my kids an even slower one.”
“He (Mr Barry) said that once he was finished with me, he was going to call to my mother and he was going to f**k her and strangle her.”
When more Gardaí arrived at the scene, Mr Barry ran into his home, locked the front door, and fled through the rear of the property, Detective Landers said.
Later on that night, Gardaí observed Mr Barry sitting on a couch in the front living room of his home and they entered the property and arrested him.
Detective Landers alleged that when he entered the front room, Mr Barry “ran straight at me and again he said, ‘I’m going to f*****g kill you’.”
Detective Landers said he identified himself as “armed Gardaí” and he gave Mr Barry “a short burst” of pepper spray into his eyes to incapacitate him.
Detective Landers said he observed “small plastic baggie vacuum bags and a small quantity of cannabis herb on the couch where Mr Barry had been sitting” and that these items were seized as part of the investigation.
He said it took a number of Gardaí to restrain Mr Barry when the pepper spray “didn’t really take full effect”. However, Garda Landers disagreed with suggestions by Mr Barry’s barristers, Andrew Sexton SC and Amy Nix BL, instructed by solicitor Sarah Ryan, that Gardaí had “beaten” and “dragged” Mr Barry out of his house while he was being arrested.
Mr Barry, who admitted being intoxicated on the night, told Gardaí following his arrest that he “had words” with Detective Landers.
Mr Barry acknowledged that he had asked Garda Landers to fight on the night, but he denied making threats against him and his family, and he described the allegations as “b****cks” and “a trumped up crock of s***e”.
