Trial of two men accused of robbery in which Garda Adrian Donohoe was murdered opens

James Flynn and Brendan Treanor are also accused of conspiring to commit a series of "creeper burglaries" in which thieves popped out the locks to the front doors of houses during the middle of the night and entered to steal car keys and other items.

Lorcan Staines SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said the prosecution would ask the court to draw inferences from phone contacts around the times of the burglaries between Mr Flynn, Mr Treanor and the man convicted of murdering Det Gda Donohoe, Aaron Brady.

He said inferences could also be drawn from the location of the cell sites their phones pinged off around the times when the burglaries happened.

Part of the evidence, counsel said, will be that a Satnav that had been in one car stolen in a creeper burglary was found by gardai when they stopped and searched James Flynn's father Eugene Flynn Snr at Dublin Airport in 2015.

Partially burned documents taken from a home in Cavan during another burglary in October 2012 were found in the house where Aaron Brady was living in March 2013, Mr Staines said.

Mr Staines said the prosecution accepts that the evidence in respect of each of the burglaries would not be sufficient to prosecute either accused in isolation.

Taking all of the burglaries together, he said, "the pattern becomes clear in terms of the individuals involved in these highly similar crimes".

In relation to the robbery at Lordship Credit Union, Mr Staines said the evidence is circumstantial and the prosecution case will "stand or fall on the strength of many fine threads wound together."

The State, he said, would have to negate the statements from the accused in which they suggested that they had a "normal day of friendly association with each other and with Aaron Brady''.

Brendan Treanor (34), previously of Emer Terrace, Castletown Road, Dundalk, Co Louth, and James Flynn (32) from South Armagh are charged that between September 11, 2012 and 23 January 2013, they conspired with Aaron Brady and others to enter a house with the intention of stealing car keys.

Both men are also charged with the robbery of €7,000 at Lordship Credit Union in Bellurgan, Co Louth on January 25, 2013.

Aaron Brady (31) previously of New Road, Crossmaglen, Co Armagh, is serving a 40-year prison sentence having been found guilty of murdering Det Gda Adrian Donohoe and of the burglary at Lordship.