A LOW-LEVEL DRUG dealer was stabbed 16 times in his Co Offaly home and set on fire after his ex-girlfriend spread a false rumour that he was a garda informant.

The victim, Ciarán Murphy (29) was found in a dog cage in his home by a passers-by who noticed his cottage was in flames. 

He was left with life-threatening injuries after he suffered 96% burns from his neck down and multiple stab wounds including into his heart cavity.

Murphy now has no ears and almost five years after the attack he is still bleeding from some of the wounds that cover his body.

Today, David Keena (21) was remanded in continuing custody pending sentence later this month after he admitted that he was in the cottage when an older acquaintance, Shaun Groome (31) stabbed Murphy and poured petrol over him.

Keena of Carrig Mor, Ballynacargy, Mullingar, Westmeath, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assault causing serious harm and criminal damage by way of arson at Murphy’s home on Coolcor, Rhode, Co Offaly on 7 September 2015. 

He has 63 previous convictions for mainly road traffic offences but was sentenced to six years in prison in April 2017 at Mullingar Circuit Criminal Court for a drug offence.

Anne Rowland SC, defending said that her client was accepting responsibility on the basis that he aided and abetted Groome (31) of Ballinderry, Mullingar, Westmeath, who has yet to be prosecuted for his role as there is an outstanding warrant for his arrest.

Groome had been charged with assault causing serious harm at a sitting in Tullamore District Court in November 2015. 

Detective Sergeant Caroline Lyng agreed with Garrett McCormack BL, prosecuting, that Murphy’s former girlfriend was high on drugs when she informed Groome that the victim was a garda informant.

Detective Sergeant Lyng confirmed that there was no truth at all to this but the woman was concerned that Murphy was in danger of being attacked and believed that by spreading this rumour she was protecting him. 

She said that Murphy was known to local gardaí at the time as a low-level drug dealer.

Lyng agreed with Rowland that Murphy was being supplied with drugs by a man named in court as “Mr C”. “Mr C” died unexpectedly and a drug debt of €2,500 that Murphy owed him, was passed on to Groome.

Groome then began supplying Murphy with cannabis and tablets and Murphy, unable to pay for the drugs or the earlier debt, gave the man one of his dogs as part-payment.

‘Consumed with fear’

Lyng agreed with Rowland that on the night of the attack, Murphy’s former girlfriend told some people in a pub she was socialising with that Murphy was a garda informant. She was then told that she needed to come into town “to talk to a friend of Mr C’s”.

The Detective Sergeant accepted a suggestion from counsel that the woman was then “frogmarched” into Mullingar to speak to Groome. She was put into the back of a car and told the man that Murphy was a garda informant and he thanked her for telling him. 

“Then he was clearly vent on revenge,” Rowland said, referring to the fact that Groome and Keena then drove out to Murphy’s home, after buying a jerry can of petrol en route.

In a victim impact statement read out in court by McCormack, Murphy stated that he was viciously attacked that night and left to die alone. He said he had at one stage during his medical treatment been given a one percent chance of survival. 

He said there were times he wished he had not survived. He is “consumed” with fear, anxiety, panic attacks and his sleep pattern has never recovered.

Murphy said he is in constant pain and left with mental scarring. He lost his hair and both ears and wears beanie hats 24/7 to protect himself from “public stares” and from his own reflection.  

He said he will never now be able to afford his own home or car because he is unemployable and described how his relationship with his young son has suffered. 

“It breaks my heart that I will never be able to play football, hurling or swim with him,” Murphy continued. He said the attack will “forever be etched in my mind”.

Judge Karen O’Connor adjourned the case to 28 July 2020 for sentence. 

Comments have been closed as legal proceeding are ongoing.