Nine years have been served in prison for a 57-year-old man who assisted the Kinahan Organized Crime Group in the murder of a guy who was not involved in any illegal activity.
Noel Kirwan, 62, was shot six times in his driveway on December 22, 2016, following a photo he took at Eddie Hutch’s funeral. Eddie Hutch was shot and killed as a result of a quarrel between Hutch and Kinahan.
Declan Brady is already serving time for offenses including weapons and money laundering. He now maintains that he is not a member of the Kinahan criminal group.
Brady was not in the center of this crime, but he was also not at the margins, according to Mr. Justice Tony Hunt.
Brady’s final year of a ten-year sentence was suspended by him as long as he continued to distance himself from the gang.
A senior member of the Kinahan Organized Crime Group tracked Mr. Kirwan’s activities on a laptop while he lived in a flat in Dublin’s Beacon South Quarter. The group had placed a tracking device on Mr. Kirwan’s automobile.
At the time, Brady oversaw the gang’s depot for storing weaponry and was also involved in money laundering.
Known as ‘Mr Nobody’, his DNA was found on a toothbrush in the apartment and he also drove the senior figure around in the back of a car with tinted windows.
Detective Superintendent Mark O’Neill said that gardaí had recovered the tracking device and downloaded the information on it along with phone evidence, CCTV footage and surveillance of Brady and other Kinahan gang members.
Brady, who has been in jail for seven years for other Kinahan gun and money laundering offences, pleaded guilty to helping the gang commit the murder.
In a victim impact statement, Mr Kirwan’s only daughter Donna asked Brady what did he gain from the murder and was it worth it for him and his friends.
“You hadn’t the intelligence to do your homework,” she told him. “Dad was an innocent man. How does it feel to know you’re going to prison for killing an innocent man?”
She added: “You may not have pulled the trigger” but “his murder wouldn’t have happened without you”.
Mr Kirwan’s partner Bernadette Rose, who was sitting beside him in the car when he was shot dead, told the court how she remains deeply traumatised by the events that day.
Defence counsel said Brady was now “a model prisoner” in the progression unit at Mountjoy Prison, who had “pressed… a reset button” on his life.
Senior Counsel Michael O’Higgins said Brady has had a significant period of reflection and has disassociated himself from those in the organised crime group.
Mr Justice Hunt said that Brady had an allegiance to the Kinahan Organised Crime Group and while he was not on the frontline in this case he was not on the periphery either.
He pointed out that while serving sentences for gun crime and money laundering, Brady appears to have had “a significant change of heart, emphasis and attitude” and has “applied himself positively while in custody”.
However, he also noted that the words remorse, regret or apology do not appear.
He sentenced Brady to ten years in prison with the final year suspended on condition he continue to disassociate himself from the organised crime group.
Brady is the fourth man to be imprisoned for helping the gang murder Mr Kirwan.
Michael Crotty, 42, of Slí Aonghusa, Aras na Rí, Cashel, Co Tipperary, was last month jailed for two years after he admitted buying his friend – a leading member of the gang – a top-up for a phone that was used to coordinate the murder.
Jason Keating, 27, of Lower Main Street, Rush, Co Dublin, was in the getaway car, in contact with the person monitoring the tracker’s movements on a laptop and he conveyed those details to the person believed to have shot Mr Kirwan. He is serving a ten year sentence
Martin Aylmer, 37, from Casino Park in Marino in Dublin, has also been jailed for his role in the murder.
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