The chief prosecution witness in the trial of four men accused of shooting a Limerick bouncer has told the jury that he was involved in six murder plots both before and after the shooting.
James Martin Cahill, who is serving a life sentence for shooting dead Brian Fitzgerald in November 2002, told Michael O'Higgins SC, defending Anthony Kelly, at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cloverhill, that he had written down details of crimes while in prison in 2006.
He denied he had ever fired a handgun before the murder and insisted that Kelly had shown him how to use the gun for the shooting. He told gardaí that he had only ever fired a shotgun when shooting rabbits and a blanks gun in an armed robbery.
Gary Campion (24), Moyross, Limerick, John (27) and Desmond (23) Dundon, both from Ballinacurra Weston, Co Limerick, and Anthony Kelly (50), Kilrush, Co Clare, all plead not guilty to murdering Mr Fitzgerald on November 29th, 2002.
Cahill said he had been involved in five murder plots in Ireland and one in England but denied he had committed two murders in England as he had told his psychologist in prison.
He denied that his handwritten account, more than 90 pages and called My Life of Crime, showed he was obsessed with guns. Mr O'Higgins said that in this account, Cahill made numerous references to obtaining guns for people. "I never got them for other people, I got them for armed robberies." He denied ever firing them.
Mr O'Higgins said that Cahill's sister and brother had told gardaí that Cahill was a compulsive liar.
He quoted from a statement by his sister in which she said he had lied about every member of the family and had stolen from and betrayed them all. Cahill denied he had exaggerated abuse they had received as children and that he had been known as "Billy Bullshitter" in his neighbourhood in Birmingham.
He agreed that he had been violent as a child and had been expelled from school after throwing a teacher down the stairs. He had been sent to a special school after that, but according to his sister, had stolen also from there.
The trial continues today before Mr Justice Peter Charleton and the jury.