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).