A 46-year-old bike mechanic on trial for the murder of a detective in Castlerea in 2020 has been accused of attempting to control his Garda interviews.
Stephen Silver, of Aughaward, Foxford, has pleaded not guilty to the capital murder of Colm Horkan but guilty of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility.
Under cross-examination, Stephen Silver was accused of building certain defences in relation to his case from ‘the moment he stopped shooting.’ Michael Delaney SC for the prosecution cited examples in video evidence of the interviews where Silver told Detectives to stop their attempts to engage him in conversation and ‘return to the matter at hand.’
In one segment during his second interview on the 18th of June, Mr Silver is seen going unresponsive to Garda questions and closing his eyes for 12 minutes, with the prosecution claiming he was ‘engaging in a tactic’ and ‘attempting to frustrate the interview.’ This was denied by the defendant who stated that ‘it was no tactic, I was tired’.
He was then questioned on his repeated use of the toilet during interviews, saying that he had a small bladder and the situation was stressful. However, this was branded as strategic by Delaney before he referenced a moment in Silver’s 5th interview where he is seen calling for a toilet break immediately after being informed he had met Colm Horkan before.
The prosecution put it to the Mayo bike mechanic that he had used breaks like this as a method of gaining time to think of answers to Garda questions, with Mr Silver replying ‘no, not at all.’ Evidence in the trial will continue at the central criminal court later this morning.
