Five members of a Dublin criminal gang will serve prison terms between three and 8½ years for an assault in which the victim was waterboarded, beaten with an iron bar, threatened with being raped using a stick and branded with the word “RAT” on his face and torso.
Judge Karen O’Connor, sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley and Judge Fiona Lydon, said the facts of the case were “shocking” and involved the use of a number of weapons designed to inflict injury and terror on the victim.
She said the court had difficulty describing what happened as words like “dreadful, horrendous and frightening are not sufficient to describe the horror”.
The branding marks on the victim’s face were designed to “maximise the visibility of his humiliation”, she said, and the actions of the defendants “bypass any notion of humanity”.
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The judge said the court also could not attach much weight to expressions of remorse by four of the accused, who she said had entered guilty pleas only after the trial had begun and when the victim, Barry Moore (35), had been summoned to court by a warrant.
Brothers Jason Hennessy (29) and Brandon Hennessy (23), of Sheephill Avenue, Blanchardstown, Dublin 15 and Kenneth Fitzsimons (46) and his son Dean Fitzsimons (26) of Castlecurragh Vale, Mulhuddart, Dublin were originally charged with various offences, including causing serious harm and false imprisonment of Barry Moore, both of which carry potential life sentences.
After the victim refused to give evidence last year, the State accepted pleas of guilty to assault causing harm, an offence that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Before it became apparent that Mr Moore was not going to give evidence, Devon Hennessy (30), of Edgewood Lawns, Corduff, Dublin 15 pleaded guilty to falsely imprisoning Barry Moore and to assisting a criminal organisation to inflict serious harm.
O’Connor imposed the shortest sentence of three years on Devon Hennessy as, she said, he was the only one of the five who tried to intervene on the injured party’s behalf. He was also the only one who entered an early guilty plea.
The judge said the offending of Jason Hennessy and Dean Fitzsimons warranted headline sentences at the maximum 10 years. In each case, she reduced that to 8½ years having considered their late guilty pleas and other mitigating factors.
Brandon Hennessy would have received the same sentence but the judge said he was already serving a term that will expire in February 2028. She therefore imposed a six-year sentence which will run consecutive to that sentence.
Kenneth Fitzsimons was jailed for eight years. The judge noted that he did not use the branding iron or hold the victim down.
All sentences, except that imposed on Brandon Hennessy, are backdated to February 17th, 2025 when they each went into custody on the charge.
At the trial last year, Det Gda Stuart Gleeson said he interviewed Barry Moore on February 13th, 2025, the day after the assault, when he recounted the details of what had happened in a shed outside Jason Hennessy’s home.
Jason Hennessy had a blue camping stove and a “cattle marker” with ‘RAT’ on it. Moore said Jason Hennessy used the gas stove to heat the marker.
“I was pleading with all four of them to let me leave, but they wouldn’t,” he said.
Dean Fitzsimons, he said, threatened to cut off his ears with a Stanley knife before “waterboarding” him using a towel and a bucket of water.
Jason Hennessy, the victim said, took the cattle marker and used it on his stomach first. “I was screaming, I never felt such pain before. I was pleading for mercy.”
Brandon and Dean, he said, held his arms while Jason Hennessy branded him on the forehead, holding it for seven or eight seconds. “I was screaming with pain, pleading to let me go,” he said.
