A man who denies that he ordered the killing of a drug dealer he believed had ripped him off told gardai the dead man was "an evil little bastard," the Central Criminal Court was told yesterday.
The accused is contesting Garda notes of interviews with him and alleges he was beaten, punched and otherwise ill treated in custody.
Mr Joseph Delaney (53), formerly of La Rochelle, Naas, Co Kildare, has pleaded not guilty to the charge that he, with his son Scott Delaney (then 22), murdered Mark Dwyer (23) on or about December 14th, 1996.
Mr Delaney has also pleaded not guilty to a second count that on December 14th, 1996 at Foster Terrace, Ballybough, Dublin, he falsely imprisoned Mark Dwyer. Scott Delaney has already been convicted of the murder.
The prosecution alleges Mr Delaney either killed Mark Dwyer or ordered him to be killed because he thought he had stolen £20,000 worth of imported ecstasy tablets from him.
In memos of interviews with gardai on December 22nd, 1996, Mr Delaney is alleged to have said, "I thought he (Dwyer) was an evil little bastard."
According to the Garda notes, he went on: "He was bad news. I often told Scott that." He did not want his son hanging around with Dwyer.
He had heard Dwyer "had boasted about beating (William `Jock') Corbally with a baseball bat before he killed him." When Corbally had pleaded with him to stop, "Mark Dwyer told him to shut up, that it would be all over in a minute."
Mr Delaney's counsel said he would deny that he ever made these remarks to the garda.
The court heard that Corbally had been reported missing at the time and is still missing, "presumed murdered".
Dwyer was said to have boasted that he had killed Corbally along with P.J. Judge, who himself was shot coming from a pub in Finglas the week before Dwyer was killed.
Sgt Francis Sweeney told Mr Blaise O'Carroll, defending, that the reason the written memo of the first two-hour interview was the same length as that of a later 25-minute interview was that Mr Delaney "wasn't as forthcoming" at first.
He and his colleague, Det Garda Terence McHugh, rejected defence allegations that they had tortured Mr Delaney by bending his thumbs back, pushing him up against a hot radiator, hitting him in the face or punching or dragging him, all with the purpose of getting him to sign "a pre-prepared statement."
Sgt Sweeney told Mr O'Carroll: "At no stage did we enter the interview room with a prepared statement. I never laid a finger on Mr Delaney during any period of his detention."
Sgt Sweeney said that Mr Delaney was visited "by one of the top criminal lawyers in this country", Mr James Orange. He said he was also photographed during his detention and "at no stage were there any marks" on him.
He agreed that the facility of tape-recording interviews was not available at Fitzgibbon Street Garda station.
Cross-examined about the allegations of beating, Det Garda McHugh said that when he was arrested, Mr Delaney was "a fine big man," "at least two stone heavier" than he was now.
Det Garda Noel O'Malley told Mr Garnett Orange, defending, that he had not given the accused "two belts to the right side of the head". Garda Pat Kellyalso said it did not happen.
Det Sgt Gerard McDonnell said he did not take contemporaneous notes of an interview with the accused on the morning of Christmas Eve, 1996, but wrote them immediately afterwards.