SENTENCING FOR THREE men convicted of falsely imprisoning, beating and mutilating Quinn Industrial Holdings director Kevin Lunney will take place on 22 November.
Verdicts of the three-judge, non jury court were delivered by Mr Justice Tony Hunt yesterday. The first guilty man cannot be identified and is named only as YZ. The other two men are Alan O’Brien (40), of Shelmalier Road, East Wall, Dublin 3 and Darren Redmond (27), from Caledon Road, East Wall, Dublin 3.
A fourth man, Luke O’Reilly (68), with an address at Mullahoran Lower, Kilcogy, Co Cavan, was found not guilty of falsely imprisoning and assaulting Lunney.
Mr Justice Tony Hunt yesterday said that the accused man known as YZ inflicted most of the injuries on Kevin Lunney while his co-accused, O’Brien and Redmond, were involved in the kidnap and assault.
Bottle of bleach
The judge said that even if the court accepts that the fourth accused man, Luke O’Reilly, provided a bottle of bleach that was used by Lunney’s attackers to destroy forensic evidence, it is reasonably possible that he did so without knowledge of what was happening to the man.
He said that the offences were organised by Cyril McGuinness, a known criminal who is now deceased, and that McGuinness kept O’Reilly separate from the men involved in the actual attack on Kevin Lunney.
He said O’Reilly may have successfully transferred the bleach to YZ, adding that it is difficult to envisage the bleach arriving from any other source. But he said it is reasonably possible that he did so “without acquiring specific knowledge of what was going on.”
He said the evidence “offers some support” to the argument made by Michael Lynn SC on behalf of O’Reilly, that O’Reilly did not know the specific reason why he was delivering bleach on behalf of Mr McGuinness.
Mr Justice Hunt added that the court’s verdict of not guilty in relation to O’Reilly is “not an endorsement of O’Reilly’s conduct”.
O’Reilly and members of his family, who supported him throughout the trial, cried when the verdict was read out and hugged one another as they left court.
Mr Justice Hunt also said it is “almost certain” that others not before the court were involved in the abduction, working as spotters or drivers for the principal offenders. He said not every detail of the crime can be known.
‘Most impressive witness’
The court found that O’Brien, Redmond (27) and the man known as YZ are guilty of falsely imprisoning and intentionally causing serious harm to Kevin Lunney at Drumbrade, Ballinagh, Co Cavan on September 17, 2019.
In his testimony earlier this year Lunney told prosecution counsel Sean Guerin SC that he was bundled into the boot of an Audi near his home and driven to a container where he was threatened and told to resign as a director of Quinn Industrial Holdings and to put a stop to litigation with which he was involved north and south of the border.
His attackers stripped him to his boxer shorts, doused him in bleach, broke his leg with two blows of a wooden bat, beat him on the ground, cut his face and scored the letters QIH into his chest with a Stanley knife. They left him bloodied, beaten and shivering on a country road at Drumcoghill in Co Cavan where he was discovered by a man driving a tractor.
Mr Justice Hunt described Lunney as a “most impressive witness” and said the court fully accepts the account given by him. His recollection of what happened to him, the judge said, had enabled gardaí to identify the yard where he was beaten and ultimately the identity of his assailants.
The judge said his account of how long he was trapped in the boot of the Audi and the length of time he was held at the yard in Drumbrade showed, “an uncanny ability to accurately estimate the passage of time even though his attackers removed his watch early on.”
His description of the yard where he was “beaten and mutilated” was borne out by the investigation, Justice Hunt added.
He said the court is also satisfied that what happened to Kevin Lunney amounted to false imprisonment and assault causing serious harm. The medical evidence is “self-explanatory” he said, “and clearly reaches the threshold for serious harm.”
Mr Justice Hunt further indicated that the court is satisfied that Lunney was assaulted in the blue horse box that gardaí identified in a yard in Drumbrade, Co Cavan that was owned by O’Reilly. Forensic investigators identified Lunney’s blood inside the horse box.
Many strands of evidence
Mr Justice Hunt first detailed the evidence against YZ, saying that the court was convinced by many strands of evidence including CCTV footage showing YZ traveling from Dublin to Cavan in a Renault Kangoo van on the day of the abduction and the previous day, in what the court said was a “preparatory journey”.
He said the court had no doubt YZ was driving the van, which was in relevant places in Cavan at significant times during the preparation and carrying out of the abduction and assault.
There was also, he said, the discovery by gardaí of an e-flow motorway toll tag in YZ’s home that belonged to the previous owner of the Audi A4 that the court accepted was the car used in the abduction.
He said there was sufficient evidence to show that YZ was “heavily involved before, during and after” the offences, adding that there was no doubt that he drove the Kangoo on both days. He was also, the judge said, the driver of the Audi that was used to remove Lunney from his home and was responsible for “inflicting most of Lunney’s injuries.”
The use of call data records as evidence, which was objected to by defence lawyers during the trial, did not affect the court’s finding, Justice Hunt said. The CCTV evidence, he said, showing the movements of the Kangoo, was enough to establish YZ’s involvement in the offences beyond a reasonable doubt.
The phone records, he said, showed a pattern of contact with McGuinness and confirmed what the CCTV already showed. He said the phone records provide a “useful check” on the other available evidence and provide “certainty” to a verdict already established beyond a reasonable doubt.
DNA inside the Kangoo van
When forensic scientist Dr Edward Connolly examined the Kangoo on 31 October, 2019, he found Kevin Lunney’s DNA in suspected blood staining on the inside, sliding door and Redmond’s DNA on bars between the front and back seats.
Mr Justice Hunt dismissed a suggestion that Lunney’s DNA was placed in the van some time in October 2019, saying that there was no need to plant Lunney’s DNA because the involvement of the Kangoo in the offences was already established by CCTV.
He said the failure of forensic gardaí on 29 October to find the area of blood staining that Dr Connolly identified two days later was the result of oversight and not the result of an “implausible, complicated, unnecessary plan to plant evidence.”
He said any such finding would require that a person had access to a sample of Mr Lunney’s blood, which the judge said is “far-fetched to say the least”.
In relation to O’Brien, the judge said that his involvement in the preparatory journey was clear from CCTV which captured him with YZ in Dublin and Cavan. He said it is clear that O’Brien met YZ and Redmond on the morning of the offences and went into a car park near YZ’s home from which the Renault Kangoo emerged a short time later, driven by YZ.
He said it was not reasonably possible that O’Brien left the car park by some other means. It was suggested by O’Brien’s counsel that he could have jumped over a 9 foot wall on one side of the car park or he could have left in a different car.
Mr Justice Hunt pointed out that O’Brien did not mention either possibility to gardaí when they asked him to account for his movements, having invoked statutory provisions that allow a court to draw inferences from anything that an accused person fails to say but later relies on in court.
Judge Hunt said the court is satisfied that the man seen travelling in the Kangoo with YZ on the day of the offences was O’Brien and that he went to Cavan and took part in the abduction and assault.
In relation to Darren Redmond, the judge said he was satisfied that Redmond’s DNA was in the back of the Kangoo because he was in the Kangoo on the day of the offence. He said there was no evidence or suggestion of any other occasion when Redmond might have been in the van to deposit his DNA.
He said that the evidence strongly supports the interpretation of CCTV footage on the day of the offence which, he said, showed Redmond going to the Kangoo with O’Brien and YZ.
The court was also satisfied that a phone belonging to Redmond travelled to Cavan in tandem with the Kangoo and was present at the yard in Drumbrade while Kevin Lunney was being held against his will.
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