Witness says protection programme depended on giving evidence in Peter Butterly murder trial

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

On 13 February 2017, David Cullen told the Special Criminal Court he had been told he would be removed from the Witness Protection Programme if he refused to return from his host country to give evidence. The proceedings were reported on 13 February 2017.

Peter Butterly was shot dead outside The Huntsman Inn, Gormanston, Co Meath, on 6 March 2013. Edward McGrath and Sharif Kelly pleaded not guilty to murder. McGrath also pleaded not guilty to firearms offences on the same occasion.

Dean Evans, a third accused, had failed to attend and had not been located by gardaí. The court proceeded with his two co-accused in his absence. Their original trial collapsed after 55 days in January 2015, and a retrial was ordered.

Cullen was originally accused of the murder but turned State’s witness over a year after the shooting and gave evidence implicating his former co-accused. He said that after agreeing in June 2014 to give evidence, he was transferred from a high-security prison to another prison and interviewed by gardaí.

Under cross-examination, Cullen agreed he wanted written assurance that he would receive €10,000 for giving evidence. Giollaíosa Ó'Lideadha SC, defending Kelly, put it to him that he had researched witness protection online for months before offering to give evidence; Cullen agreed. He denied lying about agreeing to give evidence and said he did not know why the protection arrangements took so long.

The defence barrister had suggested that Cullen and the DPP made a deal to drop the murder charge before Cullen gave his statement to gardaí.

The evidence formed part of a voir dire, or trial within a trial, to determine whether Cullen’s evidence was admissible, which the defence contested. The trial continued before presiding Mr Justice Tony Hunt, Judge John O’Hagan and Judge Anne Ryan.