Eoin Reynolds
Declan ‘Mr Nobody’ Brady, who helped the Kinahan crime gang to murder an innocent man, has had a “change of heart”, will no longer associate with the cartel and is “on the road to rehabilitation”, his lawyers have told the Special Criminal Court.
Michael O’Higgins SC asked the three-judge court to be “as lenient as circumstances permit” after Brady pleaded guilty to participating in the murder of Christopher (aka Noel) Kirwan.
Gardaí have said repeatedly Mr Kirwan was not involved in criminality in any way.
It is understood he was targeted by the Kinahans due to the false belief that he might be linked to the Hutch criminal organisation.
Mr O’Higgins said that his client is already serving a lengthy sentence for firearms and money laundering offences. The delay in prosecuting Brady for his part in the murder means that his sentences have been imposed on an “incremental and piecemeal basis”.
Change of heart
Since going into custody, Mr O’Higgins said his client has had a “very, very significant change of heart, a change of emphasis and a change in his attitude to the commission of offences.”
Counsel said that careful consideration was given as to whether Brady would get into the box to give sworn testimony of his intention to cut his ties with criminality.
He said: “He harbours a concern that if he were to actually give that evidence he might be the subject of recriminations and his personal safety and that of those close to him might be compromised.”
He is a trusted prisoner with enhanced status, has broken all connections with criminals and has demonstrated that he is “on a path to change”, Mr O’Higgins said. When released he will work with a building firm operated by his son-in-law.
Mr O’Higgins told the court that Brady is not a career criminal. He came from a working-class background, worked from his mid-teens and set up his own successful haulage company.
He suffered an accident and his business ceased trading following the economic crash in 2008. His marriage ended and having worked all his life into his early 40s, he “became involved with certain individuals”, counsel said. Brady was attracted by the money and had difficulties with gambling.
Brady’s instructions to his lawyers are that he “will not have any further association with any criminal elements whatsoever,” Mr O’Higgins said.
He added: “He is a person who is saying, “I have spent time in prison and had an opportunity to think about these matters and I want to go back to lead the life I was living before”.”
Sentencing
Mr O’Higgins asked the court to consider imposing the shortest custodial sentence it can and to suspend a significant portion of it with strict conditions and supervision.
Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding, adjourned sentencing to June 24th.
At a previous hearing, Det Supt Mark O’Neill told prosecution counsel Dominic McGinn SC that Mr Kirwan’s car was tracked using a device attached to the bottom of his car.
Brady and another man were captured on CCTV entering and leaving the Beacon South Quarter apartment complex in Sandyford in Dublin where a computer was being used to communicate with the tracking device.
The device was initially attached to Mr Kirwan’s BMW, but he sold that car a short time before he was shot. Brady was caught on CCTV in the vicinity of the car dealership at the time when the tracking device was removed from that BMW to be placed a short time later on Mr Kirwan’s new car, a Ford Mondeo.
Mr Kirwan was in the driver seat of that Ford Mondeo when he was shot six times on December 22nd 2016 at St Ronan’s Drive, Clondalkin, Dublin 22.
Following Mr Kirwan’s murder, gardaí entered the apartment at Beacon South Quarter and found the laptop used to communicate with the tracker and an instruction manual linked to the device by a unique serial number.
A toothbrush was taken from the apartment and analysis revealed DNA matching Brady.
Under cross-examination, Det Supt O’Neill agreed with Mr O’Higgins that Brady’s DNA was not found on the laptop. He said gardaí are not in a position to say who was using the laptop to communicate with the tracker and there is “no evidence Brady owned or was operating the laptop”.
Supt O’Neill agreed that Brady may not have been aware of the specific purpose for which the tracker was being used although he would have been able to work out that it was in the furtherance of a serious criminal offence and that a person was being targeted.
The detective also agreed that Brady is a model prisoner, is housed in the progression unit for enhanced prisoners at Mountjoy and has dissociated himself from all those involved in the criminal group.
Brady, of Wolstan Abbey, Celbridge, Co Kildare pleaded guilty at the Special Criminal Court in July 2019 to supervising a firearms arsenal including an assault rifle and thousands of rounds of ammunition that had been stashed in a Dublin business park.
He was sentenced to 11.5 years in prison with the final year suspended for that offence.
While in prison in 2021, Brady pleaded guilty to laundering more than €400,000 in crime cash through multiple bank accounts in 2017.
Brady, his wife and his mistress laundered approximately €1.3m in crime cash through transfers that included mortgage payments on a Spanish holiday property, a wedding at Druid’s Glen and transfers to other gang members.
The court heard that a bar tab and room bills for €27,000 from the wedding were paid for in cash, while both Brady and his wife declared no income to the Revenue over the period in question.
In January this year Brady (57) pleaded guilty to an offence that between October 20th 2016 and December 22nd 2016, within the State and with knowledge of the existence of a criminal organisation did participate in, or contribute to activity, or by being reckless as to whether such participation or contribution could facilitate the commission by a criminal organisation or any of its members of the murder of Christopher (aka Noel) Kirwan, contrary to Section 72 of the Criminal justice Act.
