Although Gardaí had their hands full trying to investigate these dozens of relatively minor incidents, detectives would soon have much bigger problems on their hands. Not as big as Brian Rattigan though. By July 2009, his gang would effectively be permanently broken up. Rattigan would be finally facing his day of reckoning over Declan Gavin’s murder, over eight years previously. Rattigan’s fate was in the hands of a jury of twelve who had the power to decide his future. If they believed that he was responsible for Declan Gavin’s murder, he would be facing life in prison. If they didn’t, then he would be a free man in just a few short years. It was a prospect that Gardaí in Crumlin didn’t even want to contemplate.
15
The Demise of the Rattigan Gang
IN JANUARY 2009, Brian Rattigan’s murder trial for the stabbing to death of Declan Gavin in August 2001 finally got under way at Dublin’s Central Criminal Court. Rattigan had done everything possible to stop the trial ever going ahead. He was in and out of the High Court and Supreme Court, on dozens of occasions, filing applications to have the charges dismissed because of negative media coverage or the fact that several of the witnesses that he had planned to call had died. It was all to no avail though, and on 13 January, he arrived at the court to face a jury of twelve of his peers who would decide whether or not he was going to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
From the beginning, Gardaí had severe trouble in trying to get witnesses, who had given statements in 2001, to go to court and repeat in public what they had seen. A lot of the reluctance stemmed from the fact that many witnesses were very young when Declan Gavin was murdered; they had since moved on with their lives and didn’t want the past dragged up again. However, in a lot of cases there was a more sinister explanation. There is no doubt that many people scheduled to give evidence were intimidated and threatened that if they turned up in court, there would be repercussions. Several people went to Gardaí and informally told them that they had been approached by associates of Rattigan, but everyone was too scared to make statements. As a result, the long list of good witnesses that Gardaí had – the number of people that could actually be counted on to speak out in open court – started to shrink. The Crime Task Force at Crumlin was tasked with delivering the thirty-seven civilian witness orders. It was a nightmare job with many of the witnesses ducking and diving from the Gardaí and refusing to take possession of the subpoenas. By the first day of the trial, thirty-one orders had been served and six were outstanding. The case was to be heard in front of experienced trial judge Barry White. One of the first things the judge did was to issue six bench warrants for the arrests of the no-show witnesses.
In the course of the trial Gardaí arrested four of the six witnesses for contempt of court and brought them before Judge White. Three of them said that they couldn’t remember the events of the night of the Declan Gavin murder because of the length of time that had elapsed and could no longer stand over their original statements. The judge accepted their stories and purged their contempt. The fourth man brought before the court was present outside Abrakebabra before Gavin was stabbed. David Byrne was a cousin of Freddie Thompson and a close friend of ‘Deco’ Gavin. He had been arrested in May 2007 as part of the Gary Bryan murder investigation because his phone had been in regular contact with Graham Whelan’s mobile just before Bryan was shot dead. Detectives regarded him as being heavily involved in Thompson’s gang. He had been the intended target of a shooting in June 2002 for which Aidan Gavin had been arrested but never charged. After the Gavin murder David Byrne had given Gardaí a detailed statement about the events of the night and told them he had been chatting to Gavin just before he was stabbed. When he was arrested and brought before the court, he said he could remember nothing about the night of the murder and was generally very unco-operative. Judge White was less than impressed and said that a spell behind bars might help Byrne remember. It didn’t, and after a couple of days in Mountjoy Byrne was back in court, still claiming amnesia regarding his friend’s death. He was sent back to prison and remained locked up for contempt for the duration of the trial.
Opening the case for the prosecution, Senior Counsel Edward Comyn called the incident outside Abrakebabra a ‘targeted attack’. He went on to say that a lot of young people had been gathered outside the restaurant and ‘a body of credible evidence will emerge from their descriptions’. He went into detail about Shane Maloney’s Nissan Micra pulling up outside with three or four young men inside.
‘A passenger got out of the car. He had a sort of balaclava on his head, had a large knife in one of his hands. It appears that people in the car were shouting “Get him, get the rat,” Comyn said, before adding that the shouting ‘seems to show there was some malice toward somebody outside Abrakebabra. It is the prosecution’s case that that person was Declan Gavin.’ Comyn said that Brian Rattigan ‘ran at Mr Gavin and attacked him. The evidence will show you that the first blow was to the arm and that the second blow struck the chest, deep enough to reach into his heart, which ultimately proved fatal.’ The barrister said that blood found on the front window of Abrakebabra and to the left of the front door would be of ‘particular significance’ in the trial.
During the first few days of the trial, several witnesses were called and spoke about their memories of the night in question. Brian Rattigan was present in court and listened intently to the evidence, as did a large number of journalists. Dinah Rattigan attended the trial every day along with her sister. Mark Skerritt, who had hit the person who stabbed Gavin with a golf club, took to the stand on the second day of the trial. He spoke of the original row outside the ‘chipper’ and said, ‘There was a lot of tension going on.’ He then described how a Nissan Micra pulled up outside Abrakebabra. ‘It looked like there was a few in it. It pulled in like a taxi pulling in to pick someone up.’ He then ‘heard a scream’ from the Micra, ‘they screamed “rat”’, he added. ‘All of a sudden there was a fella running with a balaclava on... He had a knife... It was big. When he got out of the car, everybody scattered. He was running with a knife in his hand. He was running for someone. He was running around like he was looking for someone. He found the fella he was looking for and Declan Gavin was on the ground, stabbed like.’ Skerritt continued that the man in the balaclava ‘ran towards him and stabbed him. I don’t know where, in the chest I think.’
Skerritt then described how he ‘grabbed a golf club off one of the young fellas and chased the guy. I hit him a couple of times in the shoulders and head as he was getting into the car.’ After the Nissan Micra pulled away, Declan Gavin was on the ground. ‘He was pale white, blood all over him.’
A young woman gave evidence about meeting Declan Gavin in the queue in the ‘chipper’. ‘I hadn’t seen him in a few years. We talked for about ten minutes. He was in grand form; he was real relaxed.’ She added: ‘Declan said he’d pay for the food.’
Another woman, who had gone to the assistance of Gavin in the kitchen of the ‘chipper’, swore under oath that she ‘can’t remember a thing about that night’. ‘It’s all a blur to me,’ she said. She said that she knew about what happened to Declan Gavin ‘from the newspapers’. She did manage to get over her amnesia for a time though, and said that she saw Gavin go into Abrakebabra and that people were ‘screaming his name’. She heard that he was hurt and she and a friend assisted him by putting toilet roll on his chest wound. Other witnesses gave evidence about not remembering anything of the events which took place on the night of the murder.
After this, the trial went into legal argument in the absence of the jury for four days. Senior Counsel for the defence, Brendan Grehan, had made an application to have the case dismissed after claiming that there was not enough evidence to sustain the murder charge. This meant that all the evidence in the case had to be heard by the judge before it could be put before the jury. In any event, Judge White agreed that the trial should proceed, but during this legal argument, the Achilles heel of the state’s case against Rattigan came ou
t. This was the decision by Gardaí from the Technical Bureau not to take a sample of blood from the fingerprint left by Rattigan on the exterior door of Abrakebabra, instead taking a sample of blood splatter four inches below. With hindsight it was a serious mistake, and left the defence an angle to argue that nobody knew for sure if it was Declan Gavin’s blood in the middle of Rattigan’s fingermark.
After the trial resumed, Detective Sergeant Joe O’Hara spoke about arresting Brian Rattigan for the murder and of Rattigan saying that he had ‘the wrong person’ and that he had done nothing wrong. ‘I am a nobody.’ O’Hara also told of how a doctor had examined Rattigan and had found ‘no physical injury of note’, which was at odds with what Mark Skerritt had said about hitting the person who stabbed Gavin with a golf club about the shoulders and head. Detective Superintendent Dominic Hayes told of how Rattigan had claimed he was with a married woman whose ‘fella was away’ on the night of the murder. When Hayes had asked Rattigan who the woman was, so she could give him an alibi, Rattigan responded: ‘No f***ing way, you can find her for yourself.’ Dominic Hayes also spoke about putting it to Rattigan that a lot of people witnessed the stabbing that night and said Rattigan answered him with, ‘They can say what they like, but they will have to say it all in court.’ It seems that Brian Rattigan was prophetic in that respect. People were reluctant to speak up when it came to the crunch. Rattigan’s defence counsel, Brendan Grehan, also put it to Hayes that his client had ‘no recollection’ of saying that he had not been to Abrakebabra for four months before the murder. The Detective Superintendent responded: ‘His replies were noted. He agreed they were correct.’
The trial then moved on to the forensic evidence against the accused. Detective Garda Christopher O’Connor told the court that he had fourteen years’ experience with the fingerprint section of the Garda Technical Bureau and noticed ‘a mark in what appeared to be blood’ on the exterior of the window to the left of the front door. He used a developing agent of grey powder to develop an area around the mark, which was photographed by Detective Garda Caroline Hughes. Detective Garda O’Connor said that he then compared the mark with a set of fingerprints taken from Brian Rattigan on 22 November 2001, and ‘formed the opinion that the mark found on the window is the same as the set of prints bearing the name Brian Rattigan’. He said that he found ‘twelve features of comparison’ in both. He continued his evidence by describing how he compared a mark on the exterior of the door, above the door handles; he had compared it to Brian Rattigan’s fingerprints, and formed the opinion that the prints were the same. Of the twenty-one prints found on the door and window that night, all except two had been matched.
On Friday 6 February, the prosecution finished presenting its case, leaving the way clear for the defence to present evidence. Brendan Grehan took to his feet and announced that Brian Rattigan wasn’t mounting any defence. Grehan is a master legal operator – maybe the best in the country. Grehan formulated a very unusual and bold strategy by instructing the jury that Brian Rattigan had been in custody since 15 February 2003, and was serving cumulative sentences of thirteen years with one year suspended. It was a remarkable tactic. One can only assume that Grehan and his client were playing the honesty card with the jury by admitting that Rattigan was involved in criminality, and thought that this honesty would make the jury think that, if he willingly told them that he was in prison, maybe he hadn’t murdered Declan Gavin. Whatever the reason, it was almost unprecedented, and in many ways it was a masterstroke and really served to muddy the waters. This had senior Gardaí incredibly worried.
On 9 February, both sides began their summing-up evidence for the jury. Senior Counsel Pauline Walley summed up the prosecution’s case. She told the jury: ‘The knife-man was Mr Rattigan for very simple reasons. You can be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt because his marks were found on the window beside the door. The marks were found in places central to the movement of the injured man, bleeding, trying to get in the door of Abrakebabra.’ She said that after Rattigan was interviewed by Gardaí, eleven days after the murder, he had claimed that he had not been to Abrakebabra for four months. ‘You know that that is a huge and whopping great lie, because, nine days before the alleged murder, the glass of the window was changed. If Mr Rattigan was telling the truth and was not there for four months how could his palm mark be there on the window?’ Walley asked.
She said that the mark was found four inches above an area from which a swab of blood was taken, which was later matched to Mr Gavin. ‘Although the swab was taken below the mark, you can infer the blood at the mark was Mr Gavin’s.’
Brendan Grehan, in summing up the defence’s case, said that ‘the most striking thing about this case... is the lack of evidence. Ms Walley omits the fact that seventeen other prints were found there, never identified. When you look at the evidence in this case, be very sceptical of what has been served up to you.’
Grehan returned to the decision to inform the jury of the fact that Rattigan was currently serving a lengthy prison sentence. He said that this was necessary because Rattigan had been ‘surrounded by three burly prison officers’ during the trial and this fact must have ‘struck’ the jury. He said that Rattigan displayed ‘a total lack of co-operation or respect for the Gardaí’ when he was interviewed about the murder, and added: ‘Mr Rattigan is no angel. I don’t pretend he is. Nor does he.’
Grehan also brought up the delay in bringing the case to court, saying his client ‘has been available for charge since February 2003, but here you are told by Ms Walley that they have an open-and-shut case with the benefit of forensic science’. Grehan said that ‘key evidence the prosecution sought to rely on simply collapsed in on itself – the suggestion that the swab of blood taken from the print at the scene matched to Mr Rattigan and the blood DNA matched to Mr Gavin. The swab didn’t come from the mark at all. It was taken from somewhere below the mark.’ This meant the prosecution ‘cannot prove it is blood’. Grehan said that it could even be ‘tomato sauce’, that they simply did not know. He said that this was not evidence on which the jury could be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt, and that the prosecution had failed to forensically link the print to Declan Gavin. Grehan added that this created a reasonable doubt and therefore the jury must find in favour of his client and return a not guilty verdict.’
The jury was then directed by Mr Justice White and sent to consider its verdict. After four days, there was still no verdict and the jury was obviously judiciously carrying out its function and carefully considering all the evidence. Under new legislation introduced just weeks before, the jury was allowed to go home each evening rather than being sequestered in a hotel. Some Gardaí believed that if they were forced to stay in a hotel, it might concentrate their minds and help them to reach a verdict if they knew they couldn’t go home to their comfortable beds until they had done so. The jury was told after two days of deliberation that the court would accept a majority verdict but they were still deadlocked. After the fourth day, the jury of six men and six women returned and told Mr Justice White that they could not agree on a verdict. The judge had little choice but to declare a hung jury, which was an excellent result for Rattigan. He had seen the Gardaí’s case against him and would not be surprised by any evidence that would be thrown at him if and when another trial took place. Gardaí and the DPP quickly decided that they would seek a retrial, so although Rattigan had probably won the battle, he had not won the war. The new trial date was set for November 2009. Back on the streets, where the real war was happening, Rattigan was not so lucky, and over the next few months would be hit with a fatal double blow.
At 8.40 p.m. on 13 March, Shay O’Byrne and Brian Rattigan’s twenty-six-year-old sister, Sharon, were loading a buggy into their car outside their rented house in Tymon North Park in Tallaght, when a lone gunman emerged from the shadows. The gunman calmly walked over towards O’Byrne and quickly let off three rounds from a revolver, hitting him in the back. Sharon turned around and realised what
was happening. She made a beeline for the balaclava-wearing assassin and jumped at him. The last thing the shooter expected was to be tackled by the plucky female. She lunged at the gunman and pulled the balaclava partially off his head and scratched his face. The man didn’t know what to do, so he pulled the trigger of the gun and shot Rattigan in the leg, but the bullet miraculously went straight through her. Even being shot didn’t stop the gutsy mother, and she managed to knock the gun out of the shooter’s hand. The gunman didn’t wait around for round two. He ran to a getaway car that was revving its engine just metres away and managed to escape. Sharon didn’t stop to think about her injury but ran over to Shay O’Byrne, who was her childhood sweetheart. O’Byrne was lying slumped on the concrete, a large pool of blood flowing from his open wounds. The emergency services were summoned to the scene but it was too late for O’Byrne, who died on the way to hospital. Sharon Rattigan was also taken to Tallaght Hospital for treatment, but she discharged herself soon after. Her eighteen-month-old son had been in the house when his daddy was shot outside the front garden. Sharon had to be heavily sedated. She was brought back to her mother Dinah’s house, and never returned to Tymon Park North, because she couldn’t deal with what happened there. She was in shock for weeks after O’Byrne’s slaying.
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