A man who says gardaí gave him cash and cannabis to get information linking Ian Bailey to the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier has said he believed his life was at risk and he contacted newspapers for his own protection.
Martin Graham is being cross-examined by lawyers for the gardaí and the State in the action by Mr Bailey for wrongful arrest.
Mr Graham said he decided that things had gone too far when gardaí gave him cannabis to try to befriend Mr Bailey and get information.
He said he then contacted newspapers because he wanted as many people as possible to know what was going on.
"If the gardaí found out I had told anyone anything I felt my life would be at risk. If anything untoward was to happen to me, if I was to turn up dead in a gutter then people would know something had happened to me.
He said he wanted people to know the gardaí were acting wrongly and he changed his mind about working with them as soon as they gave him the drugs.
"In my mind I had decided. How I was going to go about it I had not decided but I think I later contacted the press."
Mr Graham said he had arranged for journalists to observe gardaí picking him up and dropping him off and to "catch the police".
Mr Graham said he had asked the newspapers for money and a plane ticket to get out of Ireland but no arrangements were made and no money was ever paid.
He said he simply made the request so he could "get out of here".
Asked by Senior Counsel for the State Paul O'Higgins why he did not simply leave, he said he believed gardaí would have informed all the airports and ports and would have had him picked up for any little misdemeanour.
Asked again why he could not leave, he said: "Because I knew how long the arm of the law was.
"If the gardaí had given me drugs they did not want me wandering around the countryside telling people."
Mr O'Higgins said the gardaí would "absolutely deny ever giving you drugs".
He said he eventually "legged it" after staying in Skibbereen for a while hiding in a flat and "watching the police running around like idiots" below him.
He then went to a homeless hostel in Cork for about a month before leaving the country.
"I thought those ferry ports would be hot as hell so I never went near them for about six weeks".
He denied that he just wanted money and was hoping to "make a few bob" from his time in Ireland.
Mr O'Higgins said Mr Graham was well able to get drugs himself which could have been used in the newspaper photographs.
The jury was played a tape of Mr Graham talking to gardaí about a taxi dropping "a kilo of stuff" somewhere and during which a number of names were mentioned.
Mr O'Higgins said they were clearly not referring to home grown cannabis.
He said Mr Graham was "well in on the drugs scene in Skibbereen" and could have got the drugs himself.
Mr Graham said that he did not know anyone on the drugs scene in Skibbereen when he first made contact with gardaí and most of the information had come from them.
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