The chief prosecution witness in the trial of four men accused of shooting a Limerick nightclub doorman has told a jury at the Central Criminal Court that he had flashbacks after the murder and could hear screaming in his head.
James Martin Cahill told Conor Devally SC, defending Gary Campion, that he thought he was going to be killed in prison. Cahill is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of Brian Fitzgerald in November 2002.
Gary Campion (24), Pineview Gardens, Moyross, Limerick; John (27) and Desmond (23) Dundon, both Ballinacurra, Weston, Co Limerick; and Anthony Kelly (50), Kilrush, Co Clare, all plead not guilty to murdering Mr Fitzgerald (34), on November 29th, 2002, at Brookhaven Walk, Mill Road, Corbally, Limerick.
Cahill (33) said he had been afraid of being killed by the officers or by "politicals".
"I was in the cell in Portlaoise and they were talking above me. They were saying the murder victim didn't get a chance," he told the court.
He was hearing screaming and voices in his head and they only went away when he told the truth about the things he had done in his life. The voices started when he was in solitary confinement while serving a five-year sentence for possession of a machine gun, which he claimed was to be used in a murder in Dublin in 2003 for which he was paid €50,000.
He said the voices sounded like someone talking to him outside his head. "I was coming down the stairs in Portlaoise and I was getting some heroin off the lads and the voices were saying he's on camera."
He said the voices referred to him as a paedophile and a supergrass and sometimes seemed to be coming out of the television, answering him back and asking him questions.
He started seeing a psychologist in 2005. "I was afraid of seeing the psychologist because I was still getting the screaming. Stuff I had done when I was younger, abuse and stuff . . . I was getting flashbacks. I could see the murder in pictures."
He agreed with Mr Devally that he had told the psychologist he often talked to himself.
He said he was very concerned to get the evidence right but got mixed up with another murder that had been planned. "I was getting everything jumbled up with the screaming and everything."
In May 2005 he asked to speak to gardaí investigating Mr Fitzgerald's murder and in November of that year started making a detailed series of statements.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Peter Charleton and the jury of 12 men at the Central Criminal Court sitting at Cloverhill.