Cocaine Wars

by Mick McCaffrey

  Ritchie Rattigan was interviewed on three occasions, and, unusually, signed his interview sheets. He confirmed that the group of men Catherine said were in her house were present and were talking about Declan Gavin. Ritchie said he had been told that his brother Brian, John Roche, Shane Maloney and Joey Redmond had a row with Declan Gavin after an incident earlier in the night. He heard that John Roche and Shane Maloney had been involved in the original dispute, and that they returned to Abrakebabra with Brian Rattigan and Joey Redmond. When they arrived at the restaurant, he heard ‘there was killings. When Brian got out of the car they all scarpered.’ After the stabbing, Brian said that the knife was ‘well gone’. Ritchie also said that his younger brother told Shane Maloney to get rid of the car and told Mark O’Reilly to go with him. He denied that he had assisted Brian Rattigan in destroying any evidence or changing clothes. Ritchie said that he couldn’t remember who actually said that Gavin had been stabbed, and that he ‘heard Brian say “the knife is well gone”, sort of in the background like’, and that Brian was not speaking directly to him. Ritchie Rattigan said he was shocked when he heard that Declan Gavin was dead.

  Sharon Rattigan was interviewed by Gardaí and said that she arrived at Cooley Road at around 3.00 a.m. with Shay O’Byrne, and that her brother Brian and Joey Redmond were there. She claimed she fell asleep at 3.15 a.m., and said Brian was not there the following day. She didn’t see him for three days after this. She said she called to Natasha McEnroe’s aunt’s house on 25 August, after Brian rang her and asked her to meet him there. She was arrested on 19 October. She denied any knowledge of what happened on the night of the murder. She said that nobody spoke to her about it, and that she first heard about Gavin’s death after watching teletext. She maintained that she was not covering for Brian and was released without charge.

  Brian Rattigan’s partner, Natasha McEnroe, was first interviewed on 2 August, on the basis that she was at Joey Rattigan’s eighteenth birthday party. She said that she met Brian at Cooley Road, and headed off in a taxi at about 3.00 a.m. or 3.15 a.m. This was also verified by her aunt, who she lived with. Natasha said she did not see Brian for a few days after the murder, and did not discuss it with him. McEnroe said she hated the ground that Declan Gavin walked on because ‘he was only a rat’. In a later statement, she described how Sharon Rattigan arrived at her house on 25 August with a mobile phone number to contact Brian on. She phoned him on the number, but insisted that she didn’t ask him where he was or who he was with. When she finally met him, three or four days later, she maintained that she never asked him where he was for the last few days or what he had got up to. Detective Garda Seamus Houlihan arrested Natasha McEnroe at her house on 19 October 2001, and she was taken to Crumlin Garda Station.

  While in custody, McEnroe said that Brian Rattigan had never discussed Declan Gavin’s murder with her. She said it was not unusual for Brian to go missing for a few days at a time, and that she would often stay in Cooley Road when he was not there. She said that in the days that Brian was lying low she spoke to him on the phone as often as four times each day. She said that Declan Gavin ‘was a bleedin’ rat’, and whoever murdered him ‘should have got a motorbike and done it right. I hated him.’ She told Gardaí that a lot of people could have murdered Declan Gavin, because ‘everyone hated him’. She was released without charge.

  On 2 October 2001, Gardaí Thomas Lynch and William Hernon were on patrol when they noticed a silver-coloured Volvo S40 car with the registration plate 97 CW 1280 parked on Beechfield Road in Crumlin. After carrying out a check on the reg, it was found that the plate was false. The two Gardaí searched the vehicle. They found a sawn-off shotgun and four rounds of ammunition under the front passenger seat. The car also contained a taxi roof-sign. Detective Garda Desmond Tracey of the Garda Technical Bureau examined the car and its contents. On examining the newspaper in which the bullets were wrapped, he identified prints on the paper as matching a sample of prints previously taken from Brian Rattigan. It emerged that the car had been taken during the course of a burglary in Naas, Co. Kildare, on 1 February 2001, along with other items of property. The firearm had been taken during a burglary at Castlebellingham, Co. Louth, on 5 October 1999, and the barrel had subsequently been sawn off to make it easier to transport. The owner of the taxi roof-sign was traced. He said that it was stolen outside his home on 9 April 2001. Residents on Beechfield Road said that they had noticed the car parked in the area on a number of occasions and in a number of different positions in the week or two before Gardaí discovered it. On one occasion, they saw a man get out of the Volvo and go to the boot, before getting into a wine-coloured jeep. However, the description of the man was not very good.

  On 14 November 2001, a detective submitted a report about confidential information he had received linking Brian Rattigan, John Roche, Shane Maloney and Joey Redmond to the vehicle. According to the source, it was being used to transport drugs around the country. The informant further stated that since the death of Declan Gavin, the Volvo had been used by Brian Rattigan and his friends to store two firearms, a sawn-off shotgun and a .38 calibre pistol. The guns were being stored in the car, which was being parked around the Walkinstown area at different addresses ready for use if it was needed. Members of the Rattigan gang had received death threats from Declan Gavin’s gang since his murder. The threats did not all come from one side though, and Rattigan and his men were quite active themselves. On 15 November, Darren Geoghegan’s house on Galtymore Drive in Drimnagh was fired at in a drive-by shooting. Fortunately, nobody was injured, but the prime suspects in the incident were Brian Rattigan and John Roche. It was the second time in five months that Geoghegan’s house was shot at, and it is likely that the gang knew that he had spoken to Gardaí about what happened on the night of the Gavin murder.

  Gardaí decided to arrest all the men who had been linked to the Volvo. On 22 November, Gardaí made their move in a major dawn operation involving the simultaneous arrest of the suspects by local Gardaí, backed up by NBCI detectives. John Roche, Brian Rattigan, Shane Maloney and Joey Redmond were detained under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act on suspicion of possessing a firearm.

  Joe O’Hara arrested Brian Rattigan at his home that morning, and he was taken to Sundrive Road Garda Station. After being processed, Rattigan was brought into an interview room by Detective Inspector Dominic Hayes of the NBCI and Detective Sergeant Seán Grennan. Rattigan was in typically belligerent form, and said he did not know where Beechfield Road was, because he was very bad on locations generally. He was not sure what a Volvo S40 looked like, and he said he thought he got out of prison on 1 February 2001, the day that the Volvo was stolen. He said he couldn’t ever remember being in Naas or Castlebellingham, where the car and the fire-arms had been stolen from. Rattigan was asked which newspapers he liked reading. This question was to link him to the paper that was found with his prints on it and had been used to store the shotgun cartridges. He said he was a daily reader of the Irish Daily Star, the Mirror and the Evening Herald. He said his favourite newspaper on a Sunday was the News of the World. During the course of this interview, Rattigan was photographed, fingerprinted and given a cup of tea, before being examined by a doctor. After this Peter O’Boyle and Joe O’Hara took over the interview. Rattigan told them that he hadn’t left Dublin since getting out of prison in February, and that the confidential information that was received, linking him to the stolen Volvo and firearms, was wrong. He said he knew nothing about the shotgun or cartridges. The conversation moved on to Declan Gavin. Rattigan confidently declared, ‘I’ve no worries about Declan Gavin.’ After being given a rest and some food and drink, the interview resumed, with Dominic Hayes and Seán Grennan asking the questions. They told Rattigan that his fingerprint had been found on the newspaper in which the cartridges were wrapped. He responded to this by saying, ‘You planted my print again like ye did above in Abrakebabra.’ It was put to him that it was a bit of a coincidence that his fingerpri
nts appeared on the newspaper, but he said he ‘could have been reading that paper’. He couldn’t offer any other explanation, but pointed out that Gardaí would have a difficult job linking him to the gun, because his print was ‘only on the newspaper, not the gun’. He then laughed and said he’d have to buy himself a pair of gloves. He was dismissive of the worth of the fingerprint revelations, saying: ‘I don’t give a bollocks You said it the last time. I was in about the Gavin thing, and you said my prints were there as well.’ The interview then broke up, and Natasha McEnroe and his sister, Sharon, visited him separately.

  Later that evening, he was interviewed again, and when he was told that some of his family and friends had been interviewed since his first arrest on 4 September, he replied, ‘F***ing rats, all f***ing rats.’ The Gardaí asked him how come his prints were found on the window of Abrakebabra after the Gavin murder. He said, ‘I don’t give a f*** whose blood it was. I wasn’t there that night.’ At around midnight his period of detention was extended, and Brian Rattigan was allowed to sleep in the cell for the night. He awoke the following morning at 9.00 a.m., and was given some breakfast, before being brought into the interview room again. Joe O’Hara and Peter O’Boyle conducted the interview, and Rattigan spoke about what he called the ‘gang warfare’ going on in Drimnagh. ‘I can’t go out, that’s why I am in the bunker [keeping a low profile]. I can’t even go down to get a Deco kebab or a Deco burger.’ He laughed at this sick joke about Declan Gavin, a man who was one of his best friends before the deadly falling out. He was asked what he thought of Gavin and replied: ‘F*** him, I hate him. I am not going to admit the murder or having that gun or anything. He had it coming. I did what I had to do. I’ll not do time for him, no one will give evidence.’ While the memo of that potentially very incriminating statement was read back to him, he told Peter O’Boyle: ‘That’s f*** all use to you. I am not signing it anyway.’ He added, ‘If that tape was working I wouldn’t say any of that.’ The interview was not being recorded on tape – at the time it was not unusual to not record an interview. All interviews are now recorded. This interview ended at 10.48 a.m., and Rattigan was taken back to his cell and given food, before being brought back into the interview room by Dominic Hayes and Seán Grennan. Rattigan said that the ‘government is setting me up’, and added that nobody aside from the Gardaí was saying that he was the killer at Abrakebabra. The two detectives then showed Rattigan the notes from various people, including his two brothers, which implicated him in events on the night of the murder. ‘I didn’t stab anybody. I might have been up there but I didn’t stab anybody,’ he said. Anyway, he shrugged, if witnesses did give evidence, ‘I’ll have to do the time. What can I get, ten years? Ten years is nothing. Time would fly.’ He then conceded that he went to the house party at the Kavanaghs’ on the night of the murder.

  The interview ended in the afternoon and Rattigan made a phone call and had a visit from one of his aunts. About an hour later he was taken back for further questioning by O’Boyle and O’Hara. He was told that there was a significant amount of witness evidence against him. ‘I don’t give a f*** what they say in their statements. If it goes to court they will say f*** all,’ he answered. He was told that Justin Beatty had given a statement saying that he had seen him at Abrakebabra. ‘He saw what he saw, that’s up to him.’ Gardaí asked Rattigan why he didn’t just tell the truth. He replied, ‘Why are you asking me? You have the story.’ He was asked to repeat the alibi he gave when he was first arrested, but he didn’t remember what he said then. ‘At this stage I’d like to tell you what happened, but that’s not the way I am,’ he told the two Gardaí. ‘You know what you know. If I go signing statements, I’ll go down for life.’ He then said that he could remember what happened at the Crumlin Shopping Centre during the murder but he was not going to tell the Gardaí. This interview broke up shortly before 7.00 p.m. and, after eating a meal, Rattigan was brought back into the interview by the same two detectives. Speaking about the night of the murder, Rattigan said: ‘I was pissed; I admit that I had a load of Bud. I did about twenty lines [of cocaine]; I got a great buzz out of it. I normally would be f***ed after that and fall asleep.’ ‘But that night you didn’t Brian, did you?’ asked O’Hara. ‘No, shit happened. I am not naming names. I am not going to go down that road; I can’t tell you about the shopping centre. Say if I told you lot, what do you think would happen?’ Rattigan asked. At this point Dominic Hayes and Seán Grennan took over the interview, and Rattigan told them that the Gavin gang ‘are all a shower of rats’. When it was put to him that the evidence indicated that he murdered Declan Gavin, Rattigan said: ‘It’s too late to worry about that now. I don’t give a bollocks about Declan Gavin; I’ll go to jail if I have to. Shit happens. It happens to the best of us.’ He then looked down at his hands and said: ‘When I get out of jail after this, I’m going to cut me hands off. They have me in all this shit.’ Rattigan was referring to the fingerprints that he left at both the murder scene and in the stolen Volvo. On 23 November, Brian Rattigan was released without charge. Shane Maloney, John Roche and Joey Redmond were also all released without charge, after making no admissions while in custody.

  With Rattigan and his gang spending most of their time trying to evade the law and escape a charge over Declan Gavin’s murder, Gavin’s associates were planning to avenge his killing. The investigation into Brian Rattigan continued, and a file was prepared for the DPP. Gardaí were confident that they would get a charge, but in the meantime tensions were high, and it was only a matter of time before ‘Deco’ Gavin would be avenged.

  5

  A Brother For a Brother

  AFTER DECLAN GAVIN’s murder his gang declared war on Brian Rattigan’s mob. It was decided that the only way to seek revenge would be an eye for an eye. Gavin would have to be replaced as leader. It was decided that Freddie Thompson would step forward and take charge. ‘Fat’ Freddie was born on 16 December 1980. He lived on Loreto Road in Maryland, in Dublin’s south inner city, for most of his life. Thompson had twenty-seven previous criminal convictions for offences, ranging from road traffic incidents to public order offences and assault. Although he was just 5 ft 8" height, Thompson was a powerful and violent man who was a good fighter and often inflicted savage beatings for little or no reason. He also had ready access to lots of firearms.

  Despite the fact that Thompson was a ‘blow-in’ and didn’t come from Crumlin or Drimnagh, his no-nonsense nature and sheer aggression in relentlessly targeting Brian Rattigan and his gang meant that he was the unanimous choice as Gavin’s successor. From an early age Thompson sold newspapers on Clanbrassil Street, and was a familiar face to many local residents. He never had a full-time job and lived off the proceeds of crime, although he did start work as a butcher’s apprentice when he was sixteen, but this didn’t work out. Freddie first came to the attention of Gardaí when he was just thirteen years old. He was involved in petty crime and general antisocial behaviour, and his brashness and fearlessness led Gardaí to mark him out as a future big player. Thompson was one of four children. He has two brothers and one sister. His mother, Christine, was a lone parent. His father had left the family home when Freddie was a young lad. He is very close to his mother and siblings. One of his uncles acted as a father figure to him when he was growing up. Even though he was frequently under threat, Freddie liked to spend as much time as he could at his family home surrounded by his brothers and sister. He is involved in a long-term relationship with Vicky Dempsey, who is from a well-known Crumlin family, and they have one child. Freddie has an active interest in boxing and martial arts, and trained with a local boxing club in his teens and was very fit. Whereas some other gang members have endearing qualities, Gardaí, who deal with Thompson on a regular basis, say he is obnoxious when they are interviewing him and is not friendly or in any way a sympathetic character. He has the reputation of being utterly ruthless. When he started to associate with the Crumlin gang led by Declan Gavin, he got sucked in in a big way. H
e really embraced life as a gangster, and revelled in it. As he grew more notorious, he especially liked to see his name in newspapers. Declan Gavin’s murder was a big personal blow to Thompson, because he worshipped ‘Deco’ and would literally have done anything for him. From the day of the murder, Brian Rattigan was public enemy number one. Freddie and his senior lieutenants were obsessed with getting justice – they would stop at nothing until Rattigan was six feet under.

  Rattigan might have been expected to keep his head down after Gavin’s murder because he was a marked man, but he did the opposite and went on the offensive. He believed that if he could inflict another murder on a member of the Gavin gang, then it would be weakened forever and he could take over its territory, especially now that the two groups had completely separated and were not working together. Each group had established itself as a separate entity with separate drugs routes, customers, firearms and strictly separate social scenes. It was almost as if they had never been friends.