A murder trial jury has heard a recording of a 999 call in which the accused is alleged to have told emergency services that he and his friend had been attacked by two men who were trying to kill them.
Andrew Lacey denies murdering Derek Reddin during a fight involving four men in Dublin in 2019. On Wednesday, Aidan Bryan told prosecution counsel Roisin Lacey SC that he was working on the Dublin garda emergency line when he received a call shortly after midnight on October 15th, 2019, from a man who identified himself as Andrew Lacey.
Mr Bryan said there was "a bit of panic on the line" and the caller said that he and a friend were "being followed by two males attacking them and one had a baseball bat and the other had a knife".
The audio from the call was played to the jury in which the caller asked for gardaí and said: "Two people are after attacking me with a baseball bat and a knife."
He added "two men were trying to kill us" and said he thought one of them was Derek Reddin.
The caller said he was "worried sick", that he did not know if they were "going to try and kill us again", and said one of the attackers was lying on the ground.
He added: "The guy on the floor is one of the guys who attacked me coming home from the pub. I don't know what's going on."
Mr Bryan alerted gardaí and transferred the call back to an operator to connect the caller to the ambulance service.
Self-defence
In her opening speech to the jury, Ms Lacey said that during the period when the caller was on hold he could be heard saying to his friend: "What will we do, they jumped on us, yeah. We had no weapons, we were eating from the chipper around the corner."
The prosecution alleges that Mr Reddin was in Loughlinstown to have a fight with Andrew Lacey. Ms Lacey said there will be evidence that there had for some time been animosity and feuding between associates of both men. Counsel said self-defence may be an issue in the trial but the prosecution case "in a nutshell" is that the accused knowingly used more force than was reasonably necessary.
Mr Lacey (35), of Riverside, Loughlinstown, Co Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Derek Reddin (31) at Loughlinstown Drive on a date unknown between October 14th and October 15th, 2019, both dates inclusive.
Claire Farrell was working as an emergency call operator that night and received the first call in relation to the incident at Loughlinstown at one minute and 29 seconds after midnight. That call lasted 55 seconds and the caller said "two people are after attacking me with a knife and a baseball bat".
The line went dead from that call, but Shane Higgins said he was also working as an operator that night and received a call from a different number at three minutes and 26 seconds after midnight. He passed that call on to Mr Bryan.
On Wednesday, the jury also viewed CCTV footage of the incident in which Mr Reddin was killed.
Gda Michael Murphy told prosecution counsel Eoghan Cole BL that he put together a montage of clips showing the movements of the accused and the deceased in the build-up to the fight. He said the incident itself was captured by CCTV but the footage was obscured by a tree.
The 19-minute montage was played to the jury showing Mr Lacey and a friend leaving the Lough Inn pub in Loughlinstown and going to the Roma takeaway next door at 11.40pm. At the same time, Gda Murphy said, Derek Reddin and his friend David Howard were seen on CCTV at nearby Cherrycourt.
Mr Lacey and his friend made their way to Cherrycourt with their food and at 11.56pm, Gda Murphy said they encountered Mr Reddin and Mr Howard. "From there on, the jury have footage of what took place," Mr Cole said.
The trial continues in front of Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring and a jury of eight men and four women.
