THE DAUGHTER OF a cocaine addict who admits killing but denies murdering his brother-in-law when he opened fire on him with a submachine gun in his front garden has told his trial that her father would think there were people in the walls who were “coming to get him” when he took the drug and wouldn’t recognise his own family.
Opening the prosecution’s case at the Central Criminal Court yesterday, Garret Baker, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, told the jury that it is the State’s case that the accused man was not suffering from a mental disorder at the time and instead met the criteria for cocaine intoxication.
The prosecutor said in his opening address that a consultant psychiatrist who will be called by the defence will give evidence that the accused Christopher Devine was suffering from a mental disorder called substance induced psychotic disorder at the relevant time.
Devine (44), with an address at Convent Lawns, Kylemore Road, Ballyfermot in Dublin 10 has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to the manslaughter of Michael Tormey (49) at Thomond Road in Ballyfermot in the early hours of January 9, 2022.
Jodie Devine told Baker today that she is the daughter of the accused man Christopher Devine and her mother is Jenifer Devine, the sister of the deceased man’s wife Amy Brennan.
The witness said she was living with some of her five siblings and parents at Convent Lawns in January 2022 and was aware that her father had a “cocaine issue” in the year “building up to 2022″.
Ms Devine said she had seen the accused taking cocaine from time to time. She said he began taking the drug when she was eight or nine years old and had initially stopped when she was 12. She agreed her father was “on and off” cocaine for a period of time but in the build up to the incident it became more regular.
The witness said after September 2021 the accused would take cocaine four times a week. She said when her father took cocaine he wouldn’t leave his bedroom and would avoid his six children.
Ms Devine agreed with the prosecutor that she took a “dim view” of the accused taking cocaine and recalled seeing it on a window ledge in his bedroom around Christmas time in 2021. She said she had fallen out with him after St Stephen’s Day that year because of his cocaine issue.
Ms Devine said she had “great memories” of the deceased and had stayed with Mr Tormey’s wife a few times.
The witness said she remembered her father having a gun beside him on the living room floor of their house at Convent Lawns on 8 January, hours before the fatal shooting. She said the accused had held the gun by its tip and not by the trigger or barrel area. The witness said her father was calm and didn’t look right. She said he wasn’t hyped up and looked like he was going to collapse.
The witness recalled her father telling her that he loved her no matter what happened and gave her money. Her father had asked her to take cocaine out of his bedroom that night, which she did and disposed of it in a bin.
Ms Devine said her father had left their house later that night and returned ten minutes later. She agreed it was then she received “the distressing news” that Mr Tormey had been shot.
Ms Devine said she went to the deceased’s house at Thomond Road with her sister and saw gardai and a blue tent in the front garden. She said she was on her way back from Thomond Road when her father drove past her.
Ms Devine said her parents left their house the next day on 9 January and she understood that they were going to a hotel for the night. She said they took her youngest brother with them and were gone for a few days.
Under cross-examination, Ms Devine agreed with Michael O’Higgins, that she was 16 years old at the time of the incident and that her family and the Tormey family got on very well. She agreed her father got on very well with the deceased and everyone was always in and out of each other’s houses. She further agreed that as far as she was concerned her parents loved ‘Mick’ Tormey.
Ms Devine said her father had become a cocaine addict in 2021 and she noticed him taking more cocaine a few months before the incident.
“Was that because he was showing signs of taking more?” asked O’Higgins, to which the witness replied: “Yes, he used to think there were people in the walls, he would think people were coming to get him and would look at us and say ‘who are you’”.
“Before this he was one of the most amazing people I could imagine having as a father…he would help you without even having to ask,” remarked the witness. She said the accused was a very chilled, laid back and supportive parent.
O’Higgins put it to the witness that in the months leading up to the new year in 2022 she had described “a marked change” in his personality. Ms Devine said he just spent more time alone and would go straight up to his bedroom after work.
Ms Devine said her parents were having a row in their car when she arrived back at Covent Lawns on the evening of 8 January. She said the accused was very uptight as his phone was missing and thought his wife had taken it. The witness agreed that her mother was trying to reassure him that his phone had fallen under the car seat but he was having none of it.
The witness said she had told her father he needed help because he was going crazy. She said her father’s character would change after he took increased amounts of cocaine and would become hyper fixated.
Ms Devine said her father had come to their front door later that night and had something down by his side. She didn’t know what it was at the time but agreed that in light of what had happened afterwards she knew it was a gun.
The witness said her bare chested father had come into the sitting room and asked her if she loved him and was she on his side. She said he was holding the gun by its width and not around the trigger area. She said everyone was very confused and a little frightened so she told her father he was scaring the others.
The witness said her father had later taken money out of his pocket, put it on the floor of the sitting room and given it to the children present. She said he was crying, talking about how much he loved his children and how proud he was of them.
She confirmed to O’Higgins that she had never seen her father behave like this before and had only ever seen a gun in the movies prior to this event.
Giving his evidence by video link, Dillon Kennedy, who is the boyfriend of the previous witness, told Baker he was at Convent Lawns on 8 January and that the accused had a gun on the floor next to him when they were in the sitting room that night.
Mr Kennedy agreed he had told gardaí in his statement that it might have been a ‘MP5′ gun as that kind of weapon was depicted in a computer game he would play. He recalled hearing Mr Devine shouting ‘where’s the clip’ referring to the gun’s clip. He later saw the accused holding the gun with the clip in the weapon.
The witness agreed he had told gardaí he didn’t know whether the accused was drunk or on drugs that night but was acting crazy. “He wasn’t in the right frame of mind,” said Mr Kennedy.
Mr Kennedy agreed the accused left Convent Lawns “deep into the night” and drove off in his black Honda Accord. Ten minutes later the witness heard that Mr Tormey had been shot.
The trial continues on Monday before Ms Justice Melanie Greally and a jury of nine men and three women.
