A CLOSE relative of a man accused of murdering his neighbour with a double-barrelled shotgun has told his trial that he only had the gun in his possession because she had asked him to mind it.
Julie McKiernan was giving evidence in the trial of her first cousin, Brendan O’Sullivan (26), a father of two, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Leslie Kenny (27) in July last year.
She told the jury at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin that she asked Mr O’Sullivan to take the shotgun because she was afraid her estranged husband would use it to kill himself.
The court has heard Mr Kenny died in Mr O’Sullivan’s front garden on O’Gorman Street, Kilrush, Co Clare, after being shot four times in the chest, hip and in both knees.
Mr O’Sullivan told gardaí he had been protecting his family and was terrified Mr Kenny was going to cut his wife and “cut my kids’ throats” because he had threatened to do so a number of times.
Mr O’Sullivan, who has two young daughters, said his family had been getting “non-stop” threats from Mr Kenny, who lived a few doors away from them. He said his neighbour had threatened to pour petrol in his letterbox and put shots through his back door with his seven-shot repeater.
Mr O’Sullivan initially denied threatening Mr Kenny on the morning of the shooting, but eventually admitted to gardaí he had stood on his garden bench to confront him about the threats and shouted: “If you shoot me with your seven-shot, you’ll be getting shot back.” He said he ran upstairs when he saw Mr Kenny walk towards his house, got a shotgun, loaded it and shot Mr Kenny twice when he appeared at his garden wall.
He admitted reloading the gun and shooting him in the knees, firing the final shot as Mr Kenny lay injured on the ground.
“All I could think of was my wife and kids . . . I was just trying to scare him off,” he told gardaí.
Mr O’Sullivan initially said Mr Kenny chased his wife Claire and their two-year-old into the house, threatening to kill them.
In subsequent interviews he admitted this had not happened, and said he had confronted Mr Kenny.
In her evidence, Ms McKiernan said that about three weeks before the shooting, Mr O’Sullivan paid a social visit to her and her children.
She said there was “an awful lot of upset” at the time and that her estranged husband had threatened a number of times to use the gun on himself. “I felt safer if it wasn’t in the house and he wouldn’t know where it was,” she told the court.
The case resumes today before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of eight men and four women.