Gangland Shootings part 4 - Read OP before posting - updated 30/12/23

Starting to see a grand stretch in the evenings now

Free the gangland thread 3!

I can't deal with this.

Me nerves is at me 🤣

Irelands pretty harsh sub-judice rules.

Sub judice - Wikipedia

You are correct that papers continue to print/report on stories.

You are less correct that they continue to discuss stories. Discussion can veer into opinion, and that's where the law can be broken.

An example. Do you see the difference between these potential quotes?

1. "XYZ was charged today with a robbery in Abbey St, and was remanded on bail to appear again blah blah"
2. "10 times convicted burglar XYZ was again caught red-handed in the act today in Abbey St. He later appeared in court looking guilty as hell. Hopefully a strong judge will give him a proper sentence this time".

The papers will always go with example 1 when they report on a case. Many boards.ie users will veer into example 2 through no fault of their own.

Beware the beast is with us 🤔

How is a Garda sitting in a one man station longer going to stop burglaries?

Because you don’t have to do the job really if you don’t want to. you are, to an extent, you’re own boss.

Alright. Moving on. Or back.

Was listening to a repeat of a Tallant 4 parter on the Regency there and was reminded of something that bugged me during the trial.

Jonathan Dowdall, his da, and the hotel booking.

The hotel room was booked so as to allow Kevin Murray (Flat Cap) a base to let him reccy the layout of the hotel before the attack (pre trial there was wild theories that, as a qualified spark/ CCTV installer, Dowdall had been in messing about with the CCTV systems, but as far as I know that was nonsense).

Why in the jaysis did Dowdall use his card (or his father's, or wife's, can't recall now) to book the room in his dad's name, and then have his father collect the key the night before?

The organiser of the operation (not G Hutch, he was completely innocent as decicded by a judicial panel har har har) would surely know post attack that the guards would trawl the CCTV and the bookings and see that a best mate of Patsy Hutch who lived 4 odd miles away had booked a hotel room the night before (a hotel room that CCTV presumably showed Flat Cap entering the next day, sealing the connection), which would be stretching the bounds of coincidence and bad luck to a serious level.

Flat Cap was dying and (presumably) took the job on to leave a fat wedge for his family knowing he was too ill to ever face trial or remand. Why didn't he book the room himself and collect the keycard? The effort he put into disguising himself shows he had little fear of going down for any of it.

If that wasn't an option, just pay an old local alco/ gambling addict with no real record to book it, some eejit who the Gardai would know full well wouldn't be privy to the seriousness of what was about to go down, and thus wouldn't find themselves facing serious charges at all (he could claim he was told it was for something mad like a swingers orgy or a porno being filmed, but that he was now too scared to tell who put him up to it). Or a foreigner who was permanently leaving the country soon.

Dowdall used that to his defence, why would I be mad enough to use my own card (or was it the wife's) to book a room if I knew what was about to go down.

It was about the only part of his defence that made a bit of sense.

Many areas in Rural ireland have seen their garda stations closed by Alan Shatter and Fine Gael in 2013 and have become lawless since be it travellers robbing houses , selling drugs etc etc or most other people driving round on their phones … zero law now with garda stations 20 or 30 miles away from people.