Killer in outburst after verdict delivered

A Dublin man had to be restrained by gardaí after he was convicted by a jury of the murder of Ian McConnell, who was shot at …

A Dublin man had to be restrained by gardaí after he was convicted by a jury of the murder of Ian McConnell, who was shot at close range in the back of the head at a Ballymun tower block in December 2005.

As the jury delivered its unanimous verdict, Stephen Kelly (22), from Balcurris Road in Ballymun, rose to his feet and shouted: "Shut the f*** up" at members of the McConnell family.

The jury quickly left the courtroom.

After a short adjournment, Mr Justice Kevin O'Higgins sentenced Kelly to life in prison, to which he replied: "I'll take that on my back."

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The jury of three women and nine men had been deliberating for eight hours and 15 minutes over a two-day period at the Central Criminal Court before returning its verdict.

Mr McConnell (28) was gunned down on the first floor landing of a block of flats at Shangan Road in north Dublin in the early hours of December 11th, 2005. He died from a single gunshot wound to the back of the head, fired from close to point-blank range.

Members of the McConnell family sobbed and hugged each other as the verdict was read out, but wished to say nothing to the court or waiting media.

Mr McConnell, who had a partner and young children, was targeted as part of a suspected feud between rival gangs in the Coultry and Shangan areas of Ballymun. The accused, himself a father-of-one who sometimes goes by the name "Ned Kelly", told gardaí it was a "mad feud" that had been going on for a year and a half before the murder, involving "tit-for-tat" incidents.

Eyewitness Sinéad Knowd told the jury on day one of the trial that she saw Kelly carry out the shooting.

She told Michael O'Higgins SC, prosecuting, she had been drinking at the block of flats with the deceased: "I was just standing there and I was talking to Ian. When I turned around I was in shock, because he's just got shot on the ground, dead."

She said the person who had fired the shot was standing right beside her about two feet away. "He ran up, stood there and shot him, bang. It could have been me."

During a series of interviews with gardaí, which lasted more than 16 hours, Kelly eventually confessed to having organised the hit, but consistently denied he was the man who pulled the trigger. He told detectives: "I organised it", but said the only reason he had gone to the scene was because the deceased had previously shot him in the back.

He denied the murder had anything to do with an incident in which a person, named in court, was alleged to have raped a minor. Asked about some people's claims that there was a video clip showing this minor giving this named person oral sex, he said: "It's nothing got to do with this. The only reason I went round there was because he shot the back off me, at close range too, the bastard."

However, when he took to the witness stand during the 12-day trial, Kelly denied any involvement and claimed he had been taking cocaine and the sedative Dalmaine before interviews. He was found to have the substances in his urine, but a number of medical witnesses and gardaí said he showed no signs of being under their influence during interviews.