A GARDA has been awarded €25,000 compensation after he talked to an armed man who had killed his own wife for seven hours until he gave himself up.
Garda Thomas Fay was told Oliver Kierans was suspected of killing his estranged wife and was in a Co Cavan pub with a shotgun in September 2013.
He had known Kierans for almost 30 years and talked to him from 7pm that evening until 4am the following morning, RTÉ reported.
At one point during the night Kierans pointed his shotgun at Garda Fay and pulled the trigger but it had not gone off and he eventually walked out with the offier.
The body of Patricia Kierans was found in a room at the couple's former home, shot in the chest.
In 2015, Kierans was found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter and of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and jailed for 12 years.
Garda Fay, 60, told Mr Justice Michael Twomey in the High Court he had not taken any time off work between this incident and the murder trial, but the constant replaying of CCTV footage for the jury at the trial `eventually got to him'.
He was found to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
