Teen told gardaí co-accused stabbed Polish mechanics
The teenager who killed two Polish mechanics by stabbing them in their heads with a screw driver, told gardaí that he had seen his co-accused carry out the stabbings.
David Curran (aged 19) of Lissadel Green, Drimnagh was being interviewed days after attacking Pawel Kalite (aged 28) and Marius Szwajkos (aged 27) outside their home on Benbulben Road, Drimnagh.
He has since pleaded guilty to their manslaughter, admitting that he was the only person who carried out the stabbings. He has pleaded not guilty to their murder on February 23, 2008, relying on the defence of provocation.
Seán Keogh (aged 21) of Vincent Street West, Inchicore has pleaded not guilty to the double murder. He is being tried under the joint enterprise law.
Detective Garda Eamonn Maloney told their trial at the Central Criminal Court that he arrested David Curran four days after the stabbings. Gardaí had gone to his door a couple of hours after the attack but he was already in hiding.
Curran first denied any involvement in the attack, but towards the end of seven interviews he nominated Seán Keogh as the stabber, saying that he (Curran) threw punches.
He denied being with Seán Keogh and was asked if Mr Keogh was his friend.
“No. More of an enemy,” he said in his fourth interview.
“Seán Keogh told us you were the man we were looking for,” said a detective in his fifth interview.
“The other way around,” he replied.
“Did you actually see Seán Keogh stab them?” he was asked in his final interview.
“Sure did. I was standing right beside him,” he said. “He stuck the screw driver into his head around the temple area,” he said of the first Polish man.
Curran said that he (Curran) punched a second Polish man who came out.
“He went straight for Seán for hitting his friend,” he said. “Seán stuck the screw driver in his throat.”
Curran said there were two reasons why he did not immediately admit this to gardaí.
“One, there was a life sentence on my head and two I’d be put down as a rat,” he said. “But I’d rather be put down as a rat than a murderer.”
Curran was 17 at the time and his mother accompanied him during one of the interviews, with a youth worker attending all others.
The teenager told detectives he had been kicked out of school in third year for doing stupid things, such as being suspended three times a week. He had since done a V-Tech exam through FÁS. He said he had two previous convictions for ‘robbing cars’.
His barrister, Giollaiosa O Lideadha SC, revealed that he had two convictions for dangerous driving, one for allowing himself to be carried in a stolen vehicle, one for drug possession, a public order offence and road traffic offences for driving without licence or insurance.
Although he was never convicted, he was also involved in larceny, including theft from factories and taking cars, he said
D Gda Eamonn Maloney agreed with Mr O Lideadha that a number of scenarios were put to his client during the interviews. They included that he had been told that his father had been stabbed and had run up the road like a madman with a screw driver in his hand. Curran had denied this.
The detective was aware that Curran had a stab wound to his back at the time of the killings and that his public order conviction arose from Curran trying to take his own life eight months later.
Earlier Keith Fitzgerald told the court that his moped was taken from outside the Marble Arch bar in Drimnagh about 5pm on the day of the killings.
“There were two bottles of wine and a screw driver with black and yellow stripes,” he said of the contents of the moped.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Liam McKechnie and a jury of eight women and four men.
