The trial of Trinity law professor and former Board member Diarmuid Rossa Phelan, in which he stands accused of one count of murder, began today at the Central Criminal Court.
Phelan is accused of murdering Keith Conlon at Hazelgrove Farm in Tallaght, Dublin 24, on February 22, 2022. Conlon was pronounced dead in Tallaght Hospital two days after the shooting took place.
Phelan pleaded not guilty to this charge today in court, standing before a jury of 12 people.
Representing the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), barrister Roisín Lacey SC initiated the State’s opening statements on the case.
Lacey addressed the jury directly by detailing what the prosecution understands to have happened on the day of the shooting. She emphasised, however, that these were only opening statements and that conclusions on evidence are yet to be reached.
She said on the day of the shooting a group of four farmhands, all originally from outside Ireland, heard a dog continually barking in the late morning. Around 1pm that afternoon, Phelan and one of the workers went to the wooded area from where this noise was coming. Lacey said Phelan “took with him a firearm which was a Winchester rifle”.
“There were three men on the property… one of those was Mr Keith Conlon – the deceased man”, Lacey said, adding that “those three men were trespassers, they had no permission to be on that land”.
The men were on the farmland to hunt foxes, and used dogs as a means to track them through their scent. The court heard they were on the farmland “for about an hour” before the incident began.
Lacey said Phelan then shot the pet dog of one of the men intruding on his property, Callum Coleman, who will later appear as a witness in the case, which provoked a “heated exchange of words” between all parties.
Phelan would go on to say in police interviews that the men “exploded out from a bush”, after he shot the dog who he said was going to attack his sheep. Lacey said in court that “before that shot, no warning was given by Diarmuid Phelan; no words were said by Diarmuid Phelan”.
Upon this shooting, the men eventually moved from a wooded area of the farm to a “bunker”, remnants of the farmland’s former use as a golf course. This is where Conlon was shot.
Lacey said Phelan “was shouting at these men to go [and] to get back”, before “he took out a revolver” and quickly fired three shots – two of which were in the air. The third shot struck Conlon in the back of the head, after “he had turned away” from Phelan.
Immediately after this, one of the farmhands called Gardaí and emergency ambulance services. Phelan drove a buggy to the entrance of the property to tell people repairing the main gate to expect emergency services to arrive and to allow them through.
Upon emergency services arriving, “Mr. Conlon was alive at this point, although in a critical condition”, Lacey told the court.
She continued by preempting Phelan’s defence, and quoted him from recorded interviews with Gardaí in the days after the event.
Phelan described himself as “terrified”, “stressed”, and “scared shitless” during the confrontation with the men, whom he described as “travellers coming towards us… coming to fulfil the threats they made”. Lacey informed the court that none of the men present were members of the Travelling community.
Phelan’s defence team, spearheaded by Seán Guerin SC with help from Arthur McLean LLP, did not begin their defence today. The trial is expected to last around six weeks in total, and is presided over by Judge Siobhán Lankford.
