Drugs and violence take their bloody toll

Crime: Gangland warfare, gun killings and major cocaine hauls revealed the reality of ever-increasing criminal activity, writes…

Crime:Gangland warfare, gun killings and major cocaine hauls revealed the reality of ever-increasing criminal activity, writes Conor Lally, Crime Correspondent.

If two names dominated the media's reporting of crime over the past year, they were surely those of Rachel O'Reilly and Katy French. These two women led very different lives. O'Reilly was the doting mother and housewife leading an ordinary existence until she was bludgeoned to death by her husband, Joe. French was the wannabe it girl whose life was snuffed out by the excesses of the celebrity lifestyle she so vigorously pursued.

Joe O'Reilly's conviction in July and imprisonment for life for his wife's murder was unquestionably the biggest crime story of the year. Her family's heartbreak at losing their daughter and sister seemed momentarily suspended on the day the guilty verdict was delivered. They linked hands and held their arms aloft outside Dublin's Four Courts.

It looks certain there will be no such closure for Katy French's family. A post-mortem confirmed she died from brain damage and that she had recently taken cocaine, but it appears very unlikely that anybody will face charges in relation to her death.

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These two women were wiped out by violence and drugs, two killers whose march continued unabated across the country over the past 12 months.

While there have been 18 gun murders so far this year, the annual total will be some way off the record levels of 26 such killings in 2006. Though gardaí will welcome the fall, this year will still be one of gangland's bloodiest, with gun murders now running at almost treble the annual rates seen in the mid-1990s.

The killings have continued to be well planned and few have been solved. While some of those murdered were known to gardaí for involvement in organised crime, other victims were shot dead over relatively minor matters and at least two men, Edward Ward and Ian Tobin, were literally caught in the crossfire.

Ward had called to see a business associate, Brian Downes, at a house in Walkinstown, Dublin, in October. While he was there, a gunman burst into a yard at the back of the house. He shot Downes seven times and Ward was hit three times. Gardaí believe Downes had been supplying cars to criminal gangs and had fallen foul of one gang. They believe he was the target of the shooting and that Ward was shot because he had the misfortune of being there at the time.

Ian Tobin, from Clonsilla, was shot dead at a house party in May close to his home. Gardaí believe the gunman intended to target another man and shot Tobin by mistake through the hall door of the property.

Stabbing murders have increased sharply over the past year. The figures for the full year are not available yet, but to mid-October some 29 were recorded compared with 18 in all of last year. Seven of this year's fatalities were non-Irish nationals. The youngest victim was 14-year-old Michael Doherty from Ennis, Co Clare. He was stabbed to death outside a Supermac's restaurant in the town in June. Another minor is before the courts at present in relation to the killing. Most fatal stabbings were committed in spur-of-the-moment fights, the majority late at night or in the early hours of the morning, with the consumption of cocaine or alcohol, or both, a factor in many.

Unlike homicides involving firearms, the Garda's record in solving stabbing murders is among the highest of any crime type. There are criminal charges pending against perpetrators in all but a handful of this year's fatal stabbings.

THE DRUGS TRADE has continued to grow again this year, with the frequency and size of cocaine and heroin seizures at record levels. A measure of the level of activity among drugs gangs (and the success of the Garda National Drugs Unit) is revealed in the hugely increased work rate of the State's forensic science laboratory at Garda Headquarters in Phoenix Park, Dublin.

In 2005, the Garda sent samples from 5,700 drugs seizures to the laboratory for testing. In the first 11 months of this year that figure had reached 10,600, a near doubling in just two years.

The strength of the heroin trade is underlined by the fact there are now a record 10,000 people receiving methadone.

The biggest drug haul was the 1,500kg of cocaine found in the sea at Dunlough Bay, Co Cork, in July, after it had been dropped for collection by a catamaran that had sailed from Central America. The €105 million value of the haul was slightly higher than the value of all drugs seized in 2005. The haul was destined for the UK market. Even when it is removed from the annual figures, the amount of cocaine in circulation was again at record levels.

Some 300kg, valued at €21 million, was found by gardaí in other seizures.

Away from the front line of fighting crime, gardaí witnessed the introduction of the Garda Ombudsman Commission. Independent of the force, and with its own team of investigators, it will investigate all complaints made against gardaí and all deaths in custody.

The now retired Garda commissioner, Noel Conroy, rejected calls from the Garda Inspectorate during the year to arm all members. The new Garda Commissioner, Fachtna Murphy, has already signalled his intent to maintain an unarmed force.

IN NORTHERN IRELAND, two things happened that proved how far the peace process has come but how much more progress needs to be made.

Thomas "Slab" Murphy, the alleged former chief of staff of the Provisional IRA, was arrested and charged by gardaí with failure to make tax returns. Such a prosecution would have been unthinkable even two or three years ago, for fear of derailing the then delicate peace. The fact that prosecuting him is no longer regarded as taboo reflects a robustness in the new political landscape in the North.

But the murder of Paul Quinn in October revealed that not all of the IRA's methods and mentality have been decommissioned. The 21-year-old, from Cullyhanna, south Armagh, was lured to a remote farmyard in Co Monaghan and beaten to death by a gang of former members of the IRA. Quinn had been involved in two fights - one with a known republican and one with the son of another known republican - and was told to leave the area.

He refused and was beaten to death by a gang of masked men dressed in boiler suits and armed with iron bars. While not believed to have been sanctioned by the IRA, the killing was proof that they haven't gone away.