A 33-year-old man has pleaded guilty this afternoon to murdering his friend, who was "lured" to a country lane and "riddled" with bullets in an "execution-style killing", just two days after a second trial jury had to be impanelled because a prison officer stood too close to the defendant in view of jurors.
Conor Dolan, with an address at Ashbrook Apartments, Navan Road, Dublin 7, admitted on Friday to murdering Neil Fitzgerald (36) at Hills Lane, Crooksling, Tallaght, Dublin 24 on June 5th, 2016.
Dolan originally pleaded not guilty to the charge on July 4th and prosecution counsel Mr Lorcan Staines SC made his opening address in the trial.
Mr Staines said the prosecution would use circumstantial evidence to prove that Dolan arranged to pick up the deceased from a pub in Tallaght before driving to the remote area where Mr Fitzgerald's body would be discovered the following day.
Mr Staines said Mr Fitzgerald's body was found on a quiet country lane where south Dublin turns into countryside as one travel's south from Tallaght towards Blessington in Co Wicklow.
He was, Mr Staines said, "riddled with bullets" having been shot six times. Counsel suggested that the jury would not have much difficulty in concluding that Mr Fitzgerald was executed and that his killing was murder.
The second question, was whether Mr Dolan who had committed the murder, would take up more time, said the barrister.
However, a new jury had to be empanelled on the second day of the trial after the defence successfully applied to have the jury discharged.
Mr Paul Murray SC, defending Dolan, submitted to trial judge Ms Justice Eileen Creedon that prison officers had approached the defendant and were standing too near him while the jury was still in the courtroom.
Mr Murray told the judge that as the court went for a break at around 12.30pm on its second day, prison officers – one of whom he said was sitting too close to his client – approached Dolan to take him to the cells in view of the jury.
Prejudice
The defence was successful in their application to the court that this had created a prejudice against Dolan and the first jury of seven men and five women was discharged.
Ms Justice Creedon told the original jury that a matter had arisen just before lunchtime that day saying: "Something has arisen, so we cannot proceed with the trial. Thank you very much for the time you have given up to this date, and I am formally discharging you from the trial".
Mr Staines gave his opening speech for a second time to a jury of six men and six women on Thursday, July 6th, and the case proceeded. Evidence was given on Thursday in the trial that gardaí had recovered a burning rubber glove and mobile phone from the fireplace in the defendant's home.
The court also heard that when Dolan was approached by gardaí the day after the murder, he had cuts on his hand and blood on his tracksuit bottoms.
Following delays in the trial on Friday, Mr Murray, representing Dolan, told Ms Justice Creedon at 2.30pm on Friday afternoon that his client could be re-arraigned before the jury on the single count on the indictment.
When the registrar put the count of murder to Dolan in the presence of the jury this afternoon and asked him how he was pleading, he replied "guilty".
Addressing the 12 jurors, Ms Justice Creedon explained that the defendant had been re-arraigned on the count of murder and had pleaded guilty. She told the jury she would now release them and exempted them from jury service for the next three years.
Victim impact statement
When the six men and six women left the courtroom, Mr Murray asked for a sentence date in early October for his client as Dolan had "personal arrangements" to put in place.
Mr Staines told the judge that he would "canvass" whether the Fitzgerald family wanted to make a victim impact statement on the next date.
The judge remanded Dolan in custody until October 9th, when he will be sentenced.
Ms Justice Creedon will hand down the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment to Dolan on that date.
There had been 14 days of a pre-trial hearing in advance of the trial.
In his opening speech, Mr Staines said the deceased was a big man, standing at 192 cm (Six feet, three inches).
He said the jury might wonder how the killer got such a big man to the quiet country lane where he was killed.
He added: "The prosecution case is that he was lured to his death by Conor Dolan and that Conor Dolan was a man he trusted, a man Neil Fitzgerald considered to be his friend."
Mr Staines said the evidence would show that Mr Fitzgerald was shot between five and ten minutes after midnight when a number of witnesses heard gunshots in the area.
CCTV, automatic number plate recognition cameras and mobile phones would show the movements of the deceased and accused in the hours and minutes before the shooting, he said.
