Badfellas

by Paul Williams

  Judge began supplying the new gangs of young drug-dealers, who were emerging across the city by the mid-1990s. For many of them, it was a badge of honour to be working for the notorious gang boss – and no one would dare take them on. One of his protégés was a tough young robber called Martin ‘Marlo’ Hyland from Cabra. Hyland had a predictable criminal career, progressing from car theft and burglaries to armed robbery and then the drug trade. Officially it began in 1986 at the age of 17, when he was convicted for a number of minor offences. Six months earlier, his sister Julie had been murdered by her drunken husband, Michael Brady. Brady beat and raped his wife, before strangling her. The murder had a profound effect on young Marlo, who was close to his older sister. After that he steadily got involved in more serious crime. Marlo and his pals terrorized their neighbourhood, snatching cash from insurance agents and rent collectors on their rounds in Cabra. They also robbed trains and trucks as they travelled through the area.

  Hyland was a joyrider and was also considered a good handler of a motorbike. He used his ‘skill’ during armed hold-ups in building societies and banks around Dublin. He was banned from driving several times, although he had never actually passed a driving test. He continued to drive illegally and was caught so many times that he was eventually banned for life. A former friend described Marlo: ‘He was a great character as far as I was concerned, a real rebel who was up for anything. Martin was a good talker and very charming. He was always in control of things. I suppose he got that from when he was growing up. He was very mouthy sometimes and didn’t know when to keep his trap shut.’

  In 1987, Hyland was jailed for a variety of offences, including robbery, malicious damage and dangerous driving. When he came out of prison in the early 1990s, he began dabbling in drugs. Initially Marlo bought his supplies from Noel Mullen, a former associate of the General who was a customer of the Gilligan gang. Hyland also began to deal in heroin, ecstasy and cocaine. The young gangster despised the police and in 1995 was involved in a campaign of intimidation against officers attached to Cabra Station. But Hyland’s move into the big league began when he started working with PJ Judge. At the time Judge was in a relationship with Marlo’s sister Ellen. Marlo and his cronies learned a lot from their sinister mentor and Hyland made many contacts who would be valuable to him in the future.

  A gang of young drug-dealers from Ballyfermot were also part of PJ Judge’s network. The leading members of the gang were Derek ‘Dee Dee’ O’Driscoll, Seanie Comerford, Mark Desmond, Paul Meehan and brothers Paul and Kenneth Corbally. They started their criminal careers as joyriders and became known as the M50 gang because they indulged in high-speed nocturnal jousts with the police on the new motorway which had opened in 1992. Within a short space of time the names of these thugs would become synonymous with the new, violent gang culture.

  On Halloween night 1995, Gallanstown, a grim estate on the outskirts of Ballyfermot, exploded in an orgy of destruction. The estate had become a major centre for gangs of drug-dealers and joyriders. During the riots 16 stolen cars were used to ram police vehicles and hundreds of petrol-bombs were thrown. Such rioting had rarely been seen on the streets of the Republic, even at the height of the Troubles. On the surface it appeared to be a spontaneous explosion of pent-up frustrations, by a generation of kids with no hope or prospects. But the truth was rather different. The Gallanstown riot was carefully planned and choreographed by the M50 gang. On the night of the riot they sat in a pub in Ballyfermot, listening to scanners tuned to the police radio frequencies and directing operations on mobile phones. The gang wanted to show the police how upset they were about the recent seizure of over £100,000 worth of heroin.

  It took a force of over seventy Gardaí to take back control of Gallanstown that night, after an intensive four-hour battle. Hundreds of petrol-bombs had been prepared in advance and stolen cars were hidden off-side weeks beforehand, for what the hoods referred to as ‘the games’. Planks had been collected and nails hammered through them, to puncture the tyres of the police vehicles. The planks were painted black to make them practically invisible. The plan was to lure the police into a trap and pelt them with petrol-bombs.

  Amazingly the casualties were light that night. However, a young child was badly burned when a petrol-bomb being thrown by his father prematurely ignited. But the rioting mob would not allow an ambulance in to take the injured child to hospital. The Gardaí were forced to baton-charge their way into the house, so that the paramedics could do their jobs.

  Less than a year after the riots it was discovered that Judge’s henchman, Dee Dee O’Driscoll, and the Gilligan gang were both paying a corrupt cop called John O’Neill for inside information. The disgraced cop, who was based at Tallaght Station, was exposed by the Lucan Investigation Team and subsequently jailed.

  Aside from the M50 crew, Judge’s associates included Mark Dwyer, also from Cabra, and Declan Griffin from Coolock, North Dublin. Griffin, born in 1970, cut his teeth as a young robber and drug-dealer with Dave ‘Myler’ Brogan. By 1995 he was heavily involved in the importation of heroin and ecstasy with Judge. Decie Griffin was also a duplicitous character, not unlike John Traynor, who played both sides of the tracks to protect his own interests. Dwyer, who was three years younger than Griffin, had been involved in crime since his early teens. A small man, he shared Judge’s passion for violence.

  Judge recruited Griffin and Dwyer for the murder of his former neighbour and friend William Jock Corbally. It was one of the most gruesome and depraved crimes ever perpetrated in gangland. Superstitious criminals still recall how it brought a ‘curse’ on all those involved.

  Jock Corbally was from Ballygall Parade, around the corner from Judge’s home on Ballygall Crescent. He was four years older than the Psycho. They had been good friends in their younger years and had carried out robberies together. But the relationship turned sour when Judge was arrested and charged with an armed robbery at Ballyfermot Post Office. Judge had been arrested after the robbery in a van which Corbally told Gardaí he had loaned to the Psycho to move furniture. Judge was subsequently convicted and jailed. He had borne a dangerous grudge against Jock ever since. Judge was also jealous of Corbally, who was a charming character. But the likable rogue simply didn’t possess either the ruthlessness or the acumen to be a successful gangster. When Judge was released from prison in 1989, Jock was starting a two-year stretch for possession of drugs.

  On his release, Corbally returned to Finglas, where his enemy now controlled the local drug trade. Judge had even recruited Corbally’s two teenage sons, William Junior and Graham, into his operation. In October 1990, Judge gave them £800 worth of hashish to sell for him. The teenagers, however, only managed to sell £200 worth and smoked the rest themselves. The Psycho took pleasure giving William Junior a serious beating, and warned him of dire consequences if the money wasn’t paid up. Their father was furious when he heard this. He didn’t want his sons getting mixed up with Judge. Jock met his nemesis and promised to get the balance of the money back. Judge, however, decided that he now wanted £1,500, instead of the original £600 owed. It was interest on the drugs he’d originally given the two kids. Corbally told Judge he didn’t have that kind of money.

  In April 1991 the situation came to a head when Jock was attacked by Judge near Ballygall Crescent. Corbally got the upper-hand when he hit Judge across the head with an iron bar. The Psycho had to get 20 stitches. Judge was humiliated and swore bloody vengeance. He ordered Jock and his two sons to leave the country or else face the music. Jock refused to go and signed his own death warrant.

  In late 1992 Jock won a reprieve from his problems, when he was jailed for five years for stealing a truckload of beef. In the meantime the Psycho’s business thrived. But he never forgot his vendetta and continued to threaten the lives of Jock’s two sons.

  In January 1996, Judge got the opportunity he had been waiting for. Declan Griffin was looking for a courier to smuggle heroin for him. Griffin had been arrested a month earli
er in Dublin Airport, after arriving on a flight from Amsterdam with 3 kilos of heroin and 3,000 ecstasy tablets. Jock, who was always strapped for cash, was happy to take the job. Griffin paid him £1,000 to bring a kilo of heroin over from Holland. What Corbally didn’t know was that Judge had also invested in the shipment.

  When Corbally returned to Dublin, he decided to pull a stroke on Griffin. He arranged for an associate to hide the heroin near Sutton Dart Station. Jock’s hare-brained plan was to tip off the Gardaí – but only after he’d taken a quarter of the kilo for himself. When the heroin was seized on 19 January, Griffin was furious. Details of the seizure were all over the media the next day and the hood knew he’d been ripped off. Judge decided that the time was now right for his long-awaited retribution, and he instructed Griffin to lure Jock into a trap.

  On 28 February 1996, Griffin called Jock with the offer of £1,000 for another run to Holland. He asked the hapless courier to help him dig up the money for the drugs as it was hidden in a field. They arranged to meet in Chapelizod, West Dublin. Jock’s family and friends later recalled that he was ‘very excited’ that evening that he was going to make another ‘earner’. Griffin picked up Corbally and brought him to a field at the back of the Green Isle Hotel near Baldonnel. Judge, Mark Dwyer and a former member of the INLA, who acted as a bagman for the gang, were waiting. As soon as Griffin drove into the field they opened the passenger door. To Jock Corbally’s horror, PJ Judge’s face suddenly emerged from the darkness. ‘Jock, we want to have word with you,’ the Psycho said with a menacing grin.

  Jock tried to beat them off but they dragged him out into the field. They beat Corbally with an iron bar, a baseball bat and a pick-axe handle, as he screamed in agony and begged for mercy. But the more he screamed the more frenzied Judge became. ‘Do you remember the time we fought before?’ the Psycho snarled, as he laid into his victim. Judge accused Jock of being a ‘rat’, shouting: ‘Mountjoy is full of fellows because of you.’ He turned Corbally on his back and smashed in his pearly-white teeth – Jock’s pride and joy.

  After a while Judge and Dwyer took a break because they were so exhausted. Jock was lying on his stomach whimpering. His body could take no more and he fell silent. Judge, Dwyer and the third man dumped Jock into the boot of a second car.

  The Psycho drove off in the direction of County Kildare, where he buried his former friend in a grave he had dug earlier that day. According to sources in the underworld, Judge finished off Jock by cutting his throat. He then dumped lime on top of the body, before filling in the grave. To this day it is unknown if Corbally was alive or dead when he was buried. His grave has never been located, despite several search operations involving Gardaí and hundreds of soldiers.

  An hour after the incident Mark Dwyer returned to his flat in Phibsboro. An eye-witness who later spoke to Gardaí said Dwyer’s clothes were covered in blood and dirt. The Psycho’s sidekick was in a ‘buzz’. ‘I’m after whacking Jock Corbally. We killed Corbally with an iron bar and a knife and I am waiting for a phone call to say he is buried,’ Dwyer excitedly told the witness. Judge phoned him shortly afterwards. Dwyer was heard asking: ‘Is that baby tucked up in bed?’ Judge is said to have replied: ‘The baby is tucked in and sound asleep.’

  It didn’t take long for rumours of the demise of Jock Corbally to trickle out through the gangland grapevine. When he was officially reported missing by his family, the Gardaí launched a major investigation which lasted for several months. Decie Griffin typically tried to play both sides. He gave Gardaí information about the incident, while playing down his own role. A number of other individuals who had spoken with Dwyer also secretly reported what they knew to the Gardaí. But such was the Psycho’s reputation that no one would stand up in court against him. In May 1996, this writer published an extensive investigative story on the disappearance of Jock Corbally in the Sunday World newspaper. Although Judge wasn’t named, everyone in the underworld knew the identity of the Psycho.

  The exposure drove Judge berserk and he called a meeting of all his henchmen to discuss what to do about it. He was determined to find out who was ‘touting’ on him. He plotted to have this writer abducted, tortured to discover the source and then murdered.

  At the same time, the Gardaí were taking a much closer interest in Judge. Several shipments of his drugs were intercepted and money was seized from his bagmen. But he won a reprieve of sorts when Veronica Guerin was murdered. For a time the full resources of all the specialist police units were focused on the Gilligan gang. As soon as they were available again, Assistant Commissioner Tony Hickey intended to go after Judge.

  Despite the unprecedented reaction to the journalist’s murder, however, Judge was still determined to carry out his plans for this writer. Gardaí mounted an operation to prevent the attack taking place. But Judge soon had more blood on his hands.

  In June 1996, Michael Brady, Marlo Hyland’s murderous brother-in-law, was released from prison and went back to work as a labourer on building sites around Dublin. According to Brady’s friends and workmates, he had emerged from prison a changed man. He was described as a ‘gentle giant’ who worked hard and had given up alcohol for good. When Marlo learned of Brady’s release, he decided to finally avenge his sister’s murder. PJ Judge was happy to help out.

  On the evening of Thursday 5 September, Brady returned to his apartment off Sarsfield Quay in the north inner-city, after playing a soccer match. Around 9.30 p.m., he pulled up at the electronic gates to the car park. As he was waiting for them to open, a motorbike pulled up alongside his car. The pillion passenger got off and ran over to the driver’s door. The hit man fired four shots, hitting Brady in the head and chest. He died instantly and became the thirteenth gangland murder victim in two years.

  The following morning’s newspapers carried front page pictures of Brady’s lifeless body behind the wheel of his car. His mouth was open and his head leaned back on the head rest. The powerful and shocking picture became an iconic image of Ireland’s growing gangland culture.

  Marlo was spotted with Judge and one of his trusted lieutenants in the Royal Oak bar in Finglas the next day. They were laughing and in a celebratory mood. Hyland and Judge were overheard congratulating the lieutenant on a ‘job well done’. Hyland, Judge and a number of other associates were subsequently arrested and questioned about the murder, but there was no evidence to link them with the crime and it remained officially unsolved.

  In the months that followed, Judge became increasingly paranoid and dangerous. The Gardaí were making major inroads into his operation and the continued publicity about Jock Corbally’s murder was turning him into a pariah. One of the victims of the crackdown was Marlo Hyland. Cops seized a large shipment of hash for which Hyland still owed Judge £130,000. This put Marlo in a difficult situation. He knew how dangerous and volatile Judge could be, especially when he was owed money by his closest associates.

  At the same time the Provos, who had a strong presence in Finglas and Cabra, also began making enquiries into the Corbally murder. The dead man and his family were well liked in the area and there was a lot of sympathy for Jock’s heart-broken mother, Maureen Corbally, a gentle, God-fearing woman. But the Provos, who controlled the Concerned Parents movement, were secretly being paid off by Judge and Hyland. After an initial run-in with the terrorists in the early 1990s, the two hoods had done a deal and were left untouched, even when a major campaign was launched by the CPAD in Finglas and Cabra that year.

  The Psycho, however, was becoming a liability. Garda attention on the area was disrupting the IRA’s criminal rackets. Investigations by this writer were also beginning to get at the truth of their duplicitous relationship. Garda intelligence sources, including well-placed informants in the Sinn Féin/IRA camp, revealed that a number of prominent republicans met with Marlo Hyland to discuss the situation. They suggested that he get rid of the Psycho and take over the operation. They were pushing an open door. Hyland and some of his most trusted associates
had come to the same conclusion. Judge’s days as a feared crime lord were numbered.

  On the evening of 7 December 1996, Judge went for drinks at the Royal Oak pub in Finglas. He was with Ellen Hyland and was joined by Marlo and another associate. They were the only people who knew where the gangster was going to be that night. As Judge was preparing to leave, Marlo slipped away to make a call from the pub’s coin box. He didn’t use his mobile phone because it could be traced. Judge and Ellen Hyland left at 12.30 a.m. and got into his car. As Judge started the engine, a lone figure appeared from the shadows and fired two shots, hitting the Psycho in the back of the head. He slumped over the driver’s seat, dead. Marlo ran from the pub to check that his sister was safe. Although deeply shocked, she had escaped injury.

  Very few mourned the death of PJ Judge but his murder attracted considerable attention. Marlo and many of his associates were conspicuous by their absence from their boss’s funeral. Sinn Féin and the IRA were happy to be the chief suspects. The ‘patriotic’ republicans had rid society of another parasite. But they had also installed a more amenable Godfather to take his place.