McIlveen accused quizzed over baseball bat confusion
Irish News
30/01/09
THE man who supplied the baseball bat used to bludgeon Ballymena schoolboy Michael McIlveen denied yesterday he had been asked to get it from his home just moments before the attack.
Christopher Francis Kerr (22), of Carnduff Drive in Ballymena, told Antrim Crown Court – where he and three others face charges of murdering the 15-year-old in May 2006 – that he “brought the bat out on my own free will”.
Mr Kerr, who claimed he and others were “horrified… shocked” that it had been used in the attack on the Catholic teenager, was being cross-examined on his third day in the witness box.
Questioned by John Orr QC, for the prosecution, Mr Kerr agreed it was “true” that “Michael McIlveen did nothing to deserve a beating of any description”.
But when asked if he “got the impression” others were waiting for him to arrive with the baseball bat before the attack, Mr Kerr rejected the suggestion, maintaining he got the weapon for his “own self-protection”.
At one stage trial judge Mr Justice Treacy reminded him he had told the court that after getting the bat from his home, he had walked down to the alleyway in which Michael was attacked.
Mr Kerr maintained that the others who had chased the schoolboy and a friend “weren’t waiting for me because they didn’t know I was getting the baseball bat”.
Mr Orr then put to Mr Kerr what he’d said in interviews with police when it was suggested that someone asked him to get the bat and he had replied: “I don’t really know”.
The defendant said he “wasn’t thinking straight at the time… that’s the way it came out”, before adding that he “brought the bat out on my own free will… no-one asked me”.
Mr Kerr further claimed that the answer came after a number of days of interviewing by police and that “my head was all over the place”.
When Mr Justice Treacy pointed out to Mr Kerr that the question had come from his own solicitor, and not police, he said that “it just came out like that. My Lord… my head wasn’t thinking straight. My Lord like, that’s the way it came out”.
The trial continues.
'So venceremos, beidh bua againn eigin lá eigin. Sealadaigh abú.'
--Bobby Sands