An armed robber claimed today that gardaí gave no warning before shooting two of his accomplices during a foiled post office raid in Lusk, Co Dublin, in 2005.
Gavin Farrelly was a witness at the second day of an inquest in Dublin into the deaths of Colm Griffin and Eric Hopkins.
Farrelly said he never heard anyone shout "armed garda" while he and his accomplices carried out the robbery in the Village Store, Lusk, until after shots were fired.
Griffin (33) and Hopkins (24), both from Dublin, were shot dead by members of the Garda emergency response unit as they tried to steal €48,500 on the morning of May 26th, 2005.
Farrelly - who pounded on the glass hatch of the post office counter 12 times with a sledgehammer, terrifying staff inside - was jailed for 10 years for his part in the crime.
Witnesses had previously told coroner Dr Brian Farrell they heard officers shot "armed garda, put down your weapons" a number of times before any gunfire.
"I know what I heard," Farrelly told Dublin City Coroner's Court. "I remembered it like it happened five minutes ago."
He disputed evidence given earlier by a delivery man that gardaí shouted at the men before they entered the store. "There was no gardaí around," he said. "They could have stopped us there."
Farrelly said he walked in to the store through the deli counter first, followed by Griffin and Hopkins. As the bigger of the three, his job was to smash the glass partition. "I had the sledgehammer and started banging on the hatch," he said.
"I didn't hear anyone shouting armed garda. "I heard three shots. I thought it was Colm shooting warning shots. Then I heard 'armed garda'."
Farrelly said when he got down on the ground an officer pulled his balaclava over his eyes.
"One asked if I was Gavin Farrelly," he said. "They said we knew yourself and Colm was there, but didn't know who Eric was."
Farrelly said he couldn't see anything and didn't know Griffin and Hopkins were dead until he heard the news on RTÉ on the way to Blanchardstown Garda station in an unmarked car.
Shane Murphy SC, for An Garda Siochána, asked Farrelly if he was stressed and pumped up and focused on his job of smashing the screen. "Yes," he replied.
Mr Murphy suggested that he was so hyped up he blocked out warnings from gardaí and continued to hit the screen even after the shots were fired.
Earlier, the jury watched a 40 minute tape of CCTV footage from inside the store. The tape appeared to show Griffin pointing a gun directly at customers as he entered the back of the shop and then at the officers who shot him.
Seconds later, Hopkins was shot in the chest as he appeared to run from the post office area towards the main shop. A second bullet hit him in the head.
PA