Diarmuid Phelan trial: Jury watch dashcam and video footage from day of fatal shooting

The jury in the trial of law professor Diarmuid Phelan, who is accused of murdering an unarmed trespasser in a fatal shooting at his farm in Tallaght over two years ago, has been watching dashcam and mobile phone footage captured on the day.

Garda Dara Kelly of Tallaght Garda station told Roisin Lacey SC, prosecuting, that he had examined dashcam footage downloaded from an All-terrain vehicle (ATV) that was recovered from Hazelgrove Farm in Tallaght.

The witness said the jury would see seven segments of footage lasting 12 minutes, six of which came from a dashcam on the ATV.

The other segment was a video downloaded from the deceased Keith Conlon’s mobile phone, which the 12 jurors saw for the first time on Thursday. The video recorded by Mr Conlon was made moments before he was shot dead and male voices can be heard saying in it: “You’re f**ked now” and “this is not the end of it mate, I’m telling you, you shot the f**king dog for nothing”.

Mr Phelan (56) has pleaded not guilty to murdering Keith Conlon (36) at Hazelgrove Farm, Kiltalown Lane, Tallaght, Dublin 24 on February 24th, 2022.

Mr Conlon, from Kiltalown Park in Tallaght, was seriously injured in the shooting incident on February 22nd and died at Tallaght University Hospital two days later.

Mr Phelan is a barrister, law lecturer and farmer who owns Hazelgrove Farm, formerly a golf course in Tallaght.

Referring to the mobile phone footage, the garda witness said it was recorded on Mr Conlon’s phone at 1.04pm that day. Garda Kelly said when the video begins it is looking down an embankment and a steep hill. It then looks down towards a man in a hi-vis jacket, a snood and dark bottoms, whom the jury has been told is Mr Phelan.

The garda said the camera then “pans around” to a dog that has been shot and a man attending to the animal. He told the jury they can see a white lead “going away from the dog up towards the tree there”.

The witness said Mr Phelan has a rifle over his shoulder. He said the video showed a “verbal interaction” taking place between Mr Conlon and the accused. One of the farm hands becomes visible in the scrub in the right of the footage, he continued.

In her opening address, Ms Lacey said a “very heated exchange of words” had taken place between Mr Phelan and the intruders after one of the trespassers’ dogs was shot dead by the accused.

In the final clip, Garda Kelly said the dashcam is activated in the ATV at 1.10pm as the buggy has been started. The witness said Mr Phelan can be heard saying he is going to get some first aid as he gets into the ATV.

In the footage, the farm hands are on the hill or making their way up the embankment. One of the farm’s agricultural workers, Hannah Felgner, can also be seen on a phone.

Mr Lacey said the jury had already heard a 999 call made at 1.09pm and this footage is from a short period of time after the phone call.

At 1.09pm, Ms Felgner made a 999 call which lasted nine minutes and 18 seconds. In the call, Ms Felgner asks for an ambulance, says she is on a farm and gives the address as Tallaght near Dublin. Ms Felgner tells the dispatcher: “I’m sorry, someone shot a man, the farmer of the farm”.

The garda said Mr Phelan can be seen at 1.12pm conversing with two workers telling them to open the entrance gate to the farm.

The garda said the accused reversed the ATV up the driveway so he can do a three-point turn to get up to the farmhouse.

The witness said the accused retrieved the rifle from the back of the ATV at 1.13pm. He is then seen carrying the rifle in his left hand and holding it by the barrel, said the garda.

In the same clip, the garda said the accused went down the side of the farmhouse and into an entrance.

Mr Phelan comes back out of the farmhouse and runs the same way he came before driving off in another vehicle at 1.15pm. “He has keys in his right hand but no rifle in the right hand,” he added.

In her opening address, Ms Lacey said the jury will hear evidence that on the day in question three men including Mr Conlon had trespassed on a wooded area of Mr Phelan’s land while hunting foxes or badgers.

Ms Lacey said that Mr Phelan told gardai he became concerned about a dog running loose on his land towards his sheep and shot it with his Winchester rifle, whereupon he said three men immediately “exploded” from the wooded area and began threatening him.

The 12 jurors were also told by the State that Mr Phelan said he was shaking with fear and “scrambled” up a bank to get away but when the deceased man Keith Conlon and a second man kept coming he believed they were “coming to fulfil the threats they had made”. As they got closer, Mr Phelan said he reached for his Smith & Wesson revolver in his pocket and fired in the air over their heads but was “stunned when one man went down”, the court has heard.

In her opening speech, Ms Lacey said she expects the defence case to be that the accused was entitled to discharge the firearm in a legitimate act of self defence. They will say that it was not done with the intention of causing the bullet to penetrate Mr Conlon’s body and that the penetration was an accidental, unintended result, she stated.

The State’s case, Ms Lacey highlighted, is that when the third shot was fired, the gun was pointed in the direction of the deceased who was shot in the back of the head when he had turned away to leave. “In those circumstances we say the accused intended to kill or cause serious injury,” counsel said.

The trial continues on Tuesday before Ms Justice Siobhan Lankford and a jury of nine men and three women.