Racist comments shouted at Polish vicims, court hears

David Curran (aged 19) of Lissadel Green, Drimnagh has pleaded not guilty to their murder but guilty to their manslaughter. Seán Keogh (aged 21) of Vincent Street West, Inchicore pleaded not guilty to the double murder.

On the sixth day of the trial, the Central Criminal Court heard from Polish siblings Kamila and Radek Szeremeta, who were sharing a house with the victims and witnessed the killings.

Radek Szeremeta said he walked to the shop on their street about 6.30pm that Saturday.

“I saw Pawel and two girls hitting him. I asked him is he OK. He didn’t say anything. He looked upset,” he recalled, adding that his housemate was not doing anything to the girls.

“I noticed a broken bottle of vodka on the footpath and Pawel had a big bump on his head.”

Mr Szeremeta said he continued into the shop and thought his housemate went home. Mr Szeremeta then spoke to a woman outside, before also going home.

“Pawel was upstairs I think speaking to Marius. He went down. He was changing his boots,” he recalled. “He was very upset, crying that young people beat him.”

Mr Szeremeta said that he and his sister tried to stop him going outside again.

Kamila Szeremeta said she was having a cigarette on their front porch when she saw Mr Kalite passing by her brother, who was talking to a woman outside the local shops. He crossed the road and walked towards her.

“He was upset. He pushed me away to go into the house,” she said, explaining that her brother arrived home a minute later and went inside.

“He started talking to Pawel. Pawel didn’t want me to go inside the house. He closed the door,” recalled Ms Szeremeta. “I was asking through the door what happened.”

She said Mr Kalite did not answer and Marius Szwajkos came down from his bedroom to also ask what happened. Mr Kalite wanted to go outside, she said.

“He was really nervous. There was a scratch on his forehead,” she said, recalling that he said something about being almost 30 and being beaten by a group of kids.

“I heard a conversation between Marius, Pawel and my brother. They said there’s a lot of them outside and there was no point to go,” she recalled, explaining that she wanted to stop him. “I was holding his hand and asking him not go,“ she continued, adding that there was now a group outside the shops as there often was.

“I was standing with Pawel on the path in our garden and a group of teenagers were passing on the opposite side of the road and they started shouting, offending Polish people,” she recalled. “They said all Polish people are f***ers.”

John O’Kelly SC, prosecuting, asked if she responded.

“I did. I just asked why. Then they crossed the road,” she said. “Actually they were running in our direction. One of the guys had a tool in his hand. When he attacked I was the first at the gate so I was afraid I’d get hurt.”

She said he was swinging this tool towards her head and she ducked to avoid it.

“I got pushed out of the gate by Pawel’s body as he was falling,” she recalled. “I remember Marius jumping through the gate. There was another person standing closer to the car. He might have pushed Marius. The same person who swung at Pawel also did a movement with his hand. He might have pushed Marius.”

Mr Szwajkos fell to the ground and hit his head, she said.

“I heard the sound,” she said. “You could feel it on the pavement.”

Ms Szeremeta said that five days later she picked a person out of an identity parade in the local garda station.

“That was the person who attacked first at the small gate, who swung at me,” she said.

“The person with the screw driver?” asked Mr O’Kelly. “Yes,” she replied.

“Were you sure this was the person who stabbed Pawel?” he asked.

“100%,” she said.

Giolliaosa Ó Lideadha SC, defending David Curran, later said his client was the person she picked out of the line-up and that she told gardaí it took her one second to do so.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Liam McKechnie and a jury of eight women and four men.