Men to be sentenced today for Lunney attack
Three men, convicted in relation to the abduction and serious assault of businessman Kevin Lunney, are to be sentenced this morning (Monday), December 20.
Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding in the Special Criminal Court, is expected to deliver sentences in the case at around 11am.
Alan O’Brien (40), of Shelmalier Road, East Wall, Dublin 3; Darren Redmond (27), from Caledon Road, East Wall, Dublin 3 and a third man known as YZ, who can't be identified by order of the court, were all found guilty of falsely imprisoning and intentionally causing serious harm to Mr Lunney at Drumbrade, Ballinagh, Co Cavan on September 17, 2019.
The three-judge, non-jury court, heard pleas of mitigation from lawyers for the three men at their sentencing hearing on November 22.
On that occasion, Sean Guerin SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), said the court should set a pre-mitigation sentence for the three men of between 15 years and life imprisonment. He said aggravating factors included the "severity and viciousness" of the assault, the evidence that it was planned and included surveillance of Mr Lunney who was abducted from outside his home, driven to an isolated location, threatened, assaulted and warned that there would be further violence if he reported what happened.
Mr Lunney wrote a victim impact statement for the court, which was read out by Detective Garda Linda Harkin at that sentencing hearing.
Mr Lunney wrote that he thinks every day of the effect the ordeal has on his wife and children, saying: "The anguish they have had to endure is a greater torment to me than the physical pain of the attack."
He said that he was glad that, following the verdict, he and his family had been able to "put it out of our immediate focus" but added that "events like this can never be erased and we will need to find continuing strength and solace in the support and comfort of many good people in the times ahead."
In his statement Mr Lunney said the campaign of intimidation against Quinn Industrial Holdings, now Mannok, of which he is a director, "was intensely difficult for those directly targeted and a cause of much apprehension and fear in the wider community."
Conversely, he said, the "raw emotion and solidarity" from co-workers, friends and the community had been "one of the most affirming and humbling experiences of my life".
Addressing the men convicted of assaulting him, he said: "I don't know the reason why the defendants decided to do what they did. I don't know them or they me, and I don't know whether their absence of any personal agenda diminishes or aggravates what they have done."
On a human level, he said he was saddened that they have ruined their own lives. He added: "I sympathise with their families in the anguish they are enduring today. Neither can I fathom the intent or reasoning that encouraged and enticed them to commit this crime. I trust that those involved now realise that there will never be a place in our community for violence, or any other form of intimidation."
In his testimony earlier this year, Mr Lunney said 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 near Crossdoney in Co Cavan where he was discovered by a man driving a tractor.
YZ has 180 previous convictions including one for impeding the apprehension or prosecution of a person who had committed a murder in 2009. He received a six-year sentence at the Central Criminal Court for that offence. The other offences related to road traffic matters and theft and were dealt with at District Court level.
Alan O'Brien, who is also known as Alan Rooney, has 40 previous convictions including one for robbing €12,000 from an elderly gentleman in Virginia, Co Cavan, for which he received a fully suspended four-year sentence.
Darren Redmond has two previous convictions, one for possession of a knife and one for criminal damage. None of the three had any "appreciable employment history", Supt O'Leary said.
The superintendent agreed with Michael O'Higgins SC, for YZ, that the purpose of the offences against Mr Lunney was to "remove people who were legitimately in control of Quinn Industrial Holdings, making vacancies for other people".
YZ, the superintendent agreed, was not going to benefit from that but was the "muscle" hired to "do the dirty work".
Meanwhile, the identity of YZ may be revealed today.
The Special Criminal Court had said he could be named at midnight on December 13 but an order preserving his anonymity was extended by a week and is due to expire today, unless a further court order is made.
Delivering the court’s verdict last month, Mr Justice Hunt said that YZ was “heavily involved in these crimes before, during and after”. He said the court was satisfied that YZ was “responsible for inflicting most of Mr Lunney’s serious injuries”.
YZ has multiple previous convictions including one for helping to dispose of a body following a murder.
The sentences against all three men are expected to be passed around noon today.
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