The former partner of drug dealer Robert "Roo" Redmond collected him just minutes after a young father was shot to death "in a cold-blooded and calculated execution" in a nearby laneway on Dublin's northside, the Central Criminal Court has heard.
The prosecution contend that Robert Redmond is the older brother of accused woman Rachel Redmond (34), who is accused of driving the alleged shooter – her then partner Wayne Cooney – away from the scene and later checking him into a hotel in an effort to help him evade prosecution.
It is the State's case that Robert Redmond was engaged "in some acrimony" with 22-year-old drug dealer Jordan Davis, who was shot dead by a lone gunman on a distinctive orange bike at 4pm on May 22nd, 2019.
Ashling McNally on Friday told Seoirse Ó Dúnlaing SC, prosecuting, that she was in a relationship with Rachel Redmond's brother Robert Redmond, of Streamville Road in Donaghmede, in March and April 2019. Ms McNally said she referred to him as Robert but others called him "Roo".
The jury has already been told that Robert Redmond pleaded guilty in May 2013 to the possession of heroin worth almost €37,000 and was jailed for five years.
Asked where she was on May 22nd, 2019, when Mr Davis was shot dead, Ms McNally said she had driven her children to school around 1pm with Robert. She said Robert had later gotten out of her light blue Volkswagen Golf in Donaghmede and went to meet friends at Belcamp Lane. She wasn't sure of the exact time she had dropped him off.
The witness said she collected her children from school around 4pm and then picked up Robert from Belcamp Lane before returning home.
Under cross-examination, Ms McNally told Dominic McGinn SC, defending, that she was going out with Robert for about three years in May 2019 and agreed the relationship had fallen apart.
Ms McNally said she had met the accused woman Rachel Redmond through Robert.
The witness also agreed she had recalled May 22nd, 2019, as Sean Little had been murdered in Coolock the previous day. Sean Little (22) from Coolock was found shot dead beside a burning car near Balbriggan off the M1 in Dublin on May 21st, 2019.
She agreed she had told gardaí that she spent a lot of May 22nd with Robert but that he had wanted to go to a halting site on Belcamp Lane. She said Robert had told her he was going to the halting site but he had got out of the car at Donaghmede Shopping Centre. She agreed there was at least an hour between when she dropped him off and picked him up from the halting site at Belcamp Lane at 4.13pm.
The witness said she knew there was something going on in the area when she collected Robert as there were Garda cars and sirens.
"But you didn't get any indication from Robert that anything was going on connected to him?" asked Mr McGinn. "No, not that I seen," she replied.
Ms McNally was shown CCTV footage of another car similar to her's – a Volkswagen Golf – doing a U-turn on Belcamp Lane at the same time she was driving on the lane. Ms McNally said she hadn't noticed the vehicle at the time.
Witness Stacey Hayes, who was driving a silver Volkswagen Golf on May 22nd, has told the trial she was directed to a bus stop by her friend Rachel Redmond to collect the accused's boyfriend Mr Cooney, whom the State alleges just minutes earlier had shot Mr Davis dead. When Ms Hayes was asked by the prosecutor why she had done a U-turn on Belcamp Lane before turning onto the Malahide Road, she said Rachel "was just telling me where to go".
Now retired Detective Garda Shane Kelly told Mr Ó Dúnlaing that he had previously been engaged in the Tallaght area and was asked to view CCTV footage in relation to the investigation by Inspector John Moroney in June 2019. Mr Kelly said he had stopped the DVD at a particular clip and identified Wayne Cooney, who had a nickname 'Spuddy Cooney' and was from Glenshane Drive in Tallaght.
Mr Kelly told the jury that Mr Cooney was tall at six feet and three inches and covered in tattoos on the back of his hands and neck. One of the tattoos on his hands was "a wedge of 50 notes", he added. The witness said he was "100 per cent sure" it was Wayne 'Spuddy' Cooney in the stills and CCTV footage shown to him from around Darndale and at the Clayton Hotel near Dublin Airport on May 22nd, 2019.
Samuel McGarry, who worked as an assistant night manager for the Clayton Hotel at Dublin Airport in May 2022, confirmed that a booking had been made for Rachel Redmond on May 22nd, 2019, through booking.com.
Mr McGarry said the booking was made at 11.02pm on May 22nd and that a person giving their name as Rachel Redmond had checked in to the hotel at 12.05am in the early hours of May 23rd.
Detective Sergeant Eoin Colbert has identified Rachel Redmond as the woman in the lobby of the Clayton Hotel near Dublin Airport after midnight in the early hours of May 23rd, 2019.
Ms Redmond, from Coolock but with an address at Clifdenville Road, Cliftonville Avenue, Belfast, is charged on two counts that on or about May 22nd, 2019, in Dublin, did knowingly or believing that another person, namely Wayne Cooney, committed an arrestable offence, to wit murder, without reasonable excuse did an act with intent to impede his apprehension or prosecution.
Ms Redmond has pleaded not guilty to the two counts.
The jury have been told that the prosecution have to establish that Ms Redmond, who was in a relationship with Mr Cooney at the time, knew or believed he had committed the murder.
The trial continues on Tuesday before Mr Justice Paul Burns and a jury of three men and nine women.
