Wayne Dundon's appeal

Wayne Dundon was released on Friday morning, 19 March, after serving about 5 years of a 7 year sentence for threatening to kill Ryan Lee outside Brannigan’s Pub on Mulgrave Street on 19 December 2004. That night, a Sunday, Wayne Dundon and his wife, Anne Casey, were bringing Wayne’s 14 year old sister, Annabel, for a drink.  When Ryan Lee refused her entry, Dundon put an imaginary gun to his head and said “fuck you, you’re dead” before leaving.  Half an hour later, a man wearing a motorcycle helmet came into Brannigan’s  and shot Ryan Lee in the leg and in the groin. 

Wayne Dundon

 No one was arrested for that shooting, but Wayne Dundon was arrested and charged with threatening to kill Ryan Lee.  Dundon was tried in April 2005 and sentenced to the maximum 10 years on 13 May by Judge Carroll Moran in Limerick Circuit Court.  Dundon was also to serve a concurrent 3-year sentence for assaulting two Gardaí on 22 December 2004 in a Garda interview room as he was interrogated. He broke one detective’s jaw. Four days after sentencing, Dundon’s legal team filed an Application for Leave to Appeal against both the sentence and the conviction.

Dundon’s solicitor during the trial was Shaun Elder, a low-key, well respected solicitor, based on the Crescent in Limerick city centre.  For his appeal, however, Dundon looked beyond Limerick.  His new solicitor was to be Matt Higgins of Higgins, Hollywood, Deazley, based in Belfast. Dundon also splashed out on a higher profile barrister - London-based James Lewis Q.C., described as ‘one of Britain’s leading anti-terrorism lawyers’.

Certainly, Wayne chose more wisely than his brother Dessie who employed the services of the colourful Giovanni Di Stefano for his unsuccessful appeal in July 2007 against his conviction for murdering Kieran Keane. Di Stefano and his agents also represented dad, Kenneth Dundon at his London murder trial in 2006 

Dundon’s change of legal team meant a lengthy appeal process.  His original solicitor submitted a Notice of Ground to Appeal in August 2005, while the new legal team filed another submission in February 2007.  The Northern Irish/English legal team came in for some criticism from the judges in the appeal court, who suggested they didn’t seem ‘fully familiar with the relevant procedural rules or practices in this jurisdiction’ and didn’t seem to work well with Dundon’s previous legal team. 

Some of the grounds for appeal, while possibly sound legal argument, strike the non-legal mind as somewhat farcical. One ground for appeal included the suggestion that the State had not proved the threat against Ryan lee’s life was sufficiently serious. Another appeal ground was that Dundon’s immortal phrase, “fuck you, you are dead” “could not be reasonably construed as being a threat to kill” under the law.

Dundon’s legal team also suggested that the judge in his original trial should have told the jury that Ryan Lee had motive to lie in his testimony but that “this was a matter which could not be raised by defence counsel because of the danger that, if it were raised, it would seriously prejudice the defence.”  In other words, the defence suggested the Lee may have lied at the trial because he felt Dundon shot him later that night but the actually shooting couldn’t be mentioned at the trial lest it ‘prejudice’ Wayne Dundon.

The Court of Criminal Appeal rejected Wayne Dundon’s appeal against his conviction on 13 February, 2008. However, his appeal against the ‘severity’ of his sentence was more successful.  The defence drew contrasts between Dundon’s 10 year sentence and Noel Campion’s 3 year sentence for threatening to kill a prison officer.  Coincidentally, both sentences were handed down on the same day.  The comparisons with Noel Campion are a little rich, particularly when you take into account that Campion was a former member of Wayne Dundon’s gang and was eventually murdered by this gang in Thomondgate on 26 April 2007.

Dundon’s legal team also suggested that Judge Carroll Moran made a mistake in his original trial when sentencing by taking into account the ‘surrounding circumstance’ that Ryan Lee was later shot and is still under Garda protection.

The ruling from the appeal court was that the crime was “certainly meriting a sentence in the region of  8 years” but that this would be shortened to 7 because Dundon had “assisted, in some relatively small way, the trial and its management”.

One interesting point made by Dundon’s legal team was their insistence, that, Wayne Dundon, when released would “return to the United Kingdom where he was raised”.  This contrasts with the suggestion of some media that Dundon is heading to the continent, Mexico or just staying put in Limerick, though he won’t be going far without a passport (unless his brother, Ger, sorts him out).

On a knife's edge

Early Wednesday morning on 10 March last, Robert McNamara (35) of St. Patrick’s Park, Carrick-on-Shannon was arrested in Leitrim and brought to Limerick for questioning in Roxboro Garda station over the hijacking of a taxi on 8 March.  McNamara allegedly hired a cab from Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim to Roscommon town, some 25 miles away.  Once there, McNamara reportedly asked to be brought to Limerick, some 95 miles further on.  Not surprisingly, the taxi driver, a man in his 40s from Drumshambo, refused.  At this point, McNamara allegedly produced a knife, threatening the driver.  Over 3 hours later, the pair arrived in Limerick City at 3:30 in the morning.  The hijacker fled the cab on the Bawnmore Road, but not before he allegedly stole the Leitrim taxi driver’s  mobile phone, car keys and €140 in cash.  A women reportedly picked McNamara up in her car shortly afterwards. 

McNamara has a long history of knife crimes. Just over a decade ago, on 16 December 1999, Robert McNamara, then aged 25 and living in Clarina Park, Ballinacurra Weston, stabbed Brian O’Connell, a 22-year old father of 2, in the heart, fatally injuring him.  McNamara and O’Connell, from Doon, County Limerick, had met earlier that day, a Thursday, for the first time, in a pub, where they played pool together and played music on the juke box.  Later they went to the house of O’Connell’s sister, Sineád, to borrow money for more drink.  At this point, McNamara took a steak knife from the sister’s kitchen. 

The two men then travelled to the People’s Park in Pery Square together, climbing over the railings at around 5pm to drink some cans of beer under a park shelter. According to McNamara, they discussed robbing a woman's handbag to get more drinking money. 

As they talked, McNamara said he became uncomfortable with O’Connell, especially when the Doon man asked about McNamara’s facial scars. McNamara said he suddenly felt threatened and stabbed O’Connell.  O’Connell staggered away, managing to climb over the railings of the People’s Park before collapsing at one of the war monuments in Pery Square.   O’Connell died from a single stab wound to the chest that pierced his heart.

The People's Park, Pery Square

After the fatal stabbing, McNamara went to his mother’s house and threw the knife into a neighbour’s garden before turning himself into the Guards at Roxboro Station shortly afterwards.  Previous to this killing, McNamara had 49 convictions. 

At his trial, it emerged that McNamara, who, like Brian O'Connell, was also a father of two, had suffered from sexual abuse when about 10 years old, from a male nurse.  His history of psychiatric problems were not helped by a drink and drugs problem.  Dr Brian McCaffrey, a consultant psychiatrist who testified at the trial stated that,  "If he got real, good counselling to get him to verbalise his feelings he could emerge as a decent young man." McNamara showed his various scars to the jury during the trial – both the scars he received in an assault and the one’s he had inflicted on himself.

On 23 October 2002, Robert McNamara was found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter at the Central Criminal Court, after the jury deliberated over 2 days. In December 2002, Judge Henry Abbott sentenced Robert McNamara to 9 ½ years in jail at the Central Criminal Court.

Though McNamara was originally held on bail after his arrest in December 1999, it seems he was, at some stage, released before his trial in October 2002.  On 20 June 2002, he was arrested again, this time for possession of a kitchen knife on a Limerick street at 1:30 in the morning, and brought to Roxboro Garda Station.

McNamara’s handcuffs were released so he could sign some forms.  However, he became agitated after unsuccessfully trying to contact his mother and sister by phone at the Roxboro Garda station. McNamara then removed a second knife he had concealed in his underpants and threatened Gardaí. McNamara put his fist through a window in the station and actually stabbed himself in the stomach before fleeing the station. He gave himself up shortly afterwards near Roxboro Shopping Centre.  He was charged with 2 counts of possessing a knife, assaulting 6 Gardai and criminal damage. McNamara pleaded guilty to all charges and received two concurrent 6 month sentences. The Sun (12/07/02) ran with the headline, 'MAN ATTACKS COPS WITH KNIFE IN HIS UNDIES'.

McNamara also has an earlier conviction, dating back to 1996, for knife crime.  On 3 may 1996, McNamara attacked a man and a woman on Catherine Street with a handyman’s knife.  McNamara initially failed to turn up for his court hearing and a bench warrant was issued. After McNamara pleaded guilty in Limerick’s District Court, Judge Michael Reilly, now the Inspector of Prisons, jailed McNamara, then just 21 and living in O’Malley Park, Southill, to 33 months and directed that he should receive psychiatric treatment.

A shot at Coffey

Paul Coffey had a lucky escape on Sunday, 14 March last on Michael Street, when, at around 9:30pm, a gunman, probably with the McCarthy-Dundon gang, fired at least two shots at him before making his escape in a old Toyota Corolla.

The target of the shooting on Michael Street is originally from Derryfada, Clonlara and later of Craeval Park, Moyross. Paul Coffey was the driver for Kieran Keane and Philip Collopy (both now themselves dead) when they murdered Eddie Ryan in the Moose Bar on 12 November 2000.  This murder is regarded as sparking off the intense feud that has seen some 20 deaths in a decade.

That Sunday night back in 2000, Coffey was out driving with his partner Michelle Ryan, when Keane and Collopy asked him to drive them somewhere.  They took him to a coal yard where he got into a large dark car and drove the two to the Moose Bar on Cathedral Place. While en route, Keane made a quick mobile call to his spotter to confirm Eddie Ryan was in the bar.

The Moose Bar

Collopy and Keane entered the bar wearing balaclavas, shooting Eddie Ryan 11 times, also hitting a mother and daughter standing next to him.  Eddie Ryan was effectively a dead man walking after his gun jammed when he tried to kill Christy Keane just two days earlier. After the shooting in the Moose Bar, Coffey managed to stall the getaway car outside but eventually got it going and, after dropping of the two gunmen, doused the car in petrol and torched it out in Corbally. 

Less than a month later, on 10 December 2000, Coffey was arrested in connection with the Eddie Ryan murder.  His partner Michelle Ryan, a relation of Eddie's, originally told the Guards she wouldn’t cover for Coffey any more, but later refused to sign any statement incriminating him. 

Coffey’s first murder trial, in April 2002, had to be abandoned after firstly, a juror went missing and later, one of the main Garda witnesses was seriously ill and had to be hospitalised.  

Paul Coffey - his lawyer says he has low I.Q.

The subsequent murder trial, in July 2003, was halted when the charge of murder was withdrawn and Coffey agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter.  He was sentenced to 15 years, with 7 years of this suspended.  Judge Henry Abbott took into account the fact that Coffey, according to his Defence Counsel, had a low IQ and was by no means the mastermind of the operation.  Coffey himself insisted that he only realised what was actually going on when Keane and Collopy put their balaclavas on outside the Moose Bar.  The Judge also considered that Coffey suffered from depression, abused drugs and claimed had been sexually abused in his youth. 

Coffey’s prison sentence wasn’t entirely uneventful.  In 2006, he was involved in a serious fight with another Limerick gang member, the one-legged Roy Woodland.  Woodland slashed Coffey’s face with a blade from his ear to his mouth.  Woodland, like Coffey, would be a minion in the Keane-Collopy gang, so their disagreement was probably not feud-related, unless the Keane’s were still annoyed that Coffey had, initially at least, so readily named names to the Guards back in 2000.

More recently, in June 2008, Coffey was caught with a pink Sony Ericsson phone in his cell in Limerick Prison and, after a trial at the Limerick District Court, had three months added to his sentence.

Coffey’s release in January 2010 attracted plenty of publicity.  'Notorious gang killer released from prison' was the headline in the Irish Independent, while Fine Gael’s spokesman on Justice, Charlie Flanagan, lambasted the Government in a Dáil debate on gangland crime, highlighting Coffey’s case as a reason for a minimum mandatory 25 year sentence for murder. 

This wasn’t the first time Paul Coffey’s criminal record became a political football.  In June 1996, Coffey, then just 19, was on trial for driving a stolen car while drunk, uninsured and serving a driving ban. Judge Gerard Haughton, presiding at Limerick District Court, condemned then Justice Minister Nora Owen from the bench.  The judge asked, “Why should I bother sentencing criminals at all?”, if people like Paul Coffey were free on temporary release after just 5 weeks into a 10 month sentence for a similar offence.  Apparently, in this instance, Coffey was so drunk he barely recalled the incident.  Judge Haughton sentenced Coffey to 11 months and banned him from driving until 2011, meaning Coffey was driving while disqualified when he drove Kieran Keane and Philip Collopy to the Moose Bar in November 2000.

Nora Owen 'released' Paul Coffey in 1996