Man jailed for 10 years for role in plot to murder three men outside Dublin pub

Kinahan cartel member Alan Wilson has been jailed for 10 years for his role in a murder conspiracy that led to a notorious shooting outside the Player’s Lounge pub in Dublin in 2010.

Wilson was acting on the instructions of a dissident republican group when he sourced the firearms and vehicles used in the shooting and provided information about the getaway route and where to burn out the getaway car.

Ms Justice Tara Burns, presiding at the Special Criminal Court on Wednesday, said Wilson was involved in a “highly sophisticated, meticulously planned attack on a Sunday in July in front of a large group of civilians out socialising”.

She said the attack had left two of the three victims with lifelong injuries including brain damage to one of them, leaving him forever reliant on the daily support of his family.

She also noted that none of the three victims were the intended targets of the shooting.

Wilson (42), with a last address at New Street Gardens, Dublin 8, pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to murder persons unknown on July 26th, 2010, contrary to Section 71 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006.

He also pleaded guilty to an offence under the Firearms Act of possession of a .38 calibre Smith & Wesson revolver and a .32 calibre Zastava semi-automatic pistol on dates between July 24th and July 26th, 2010, in circumstances that give rise to the reasonable inference that he possessed them for an unlawful purpose.

Wilson had pleaded not guilty to the attempted murders of Brian Masterson, Wayne Barrett and Austin Purcell at The Player’s Lounge Public House, Fairview Strand, Fairview, Dublin 3, on July 26th, 2010.

Those attempted murder charges have now been officially dropped after the Director of Public Prosecutions entered a nolle prosequi.

Following the sentence hearing, Insp Liam Donoghue told the media that the murders plot had resulted in “three completely innocent victims” being shot outside a pub.

He said the outcome is “further evidence that An Garda Síochána, with public support, will bring persons who involve themselves in serious and organised crime before the courts regardless of the passage of time”.

Before sentencing, Wilson’s lawyers had asked the court to take into consideration the “suffering” and “harm” that Wilson had endured due to being accused of murdering teenager Marioara Rostas. In 2014 Wilson was found not guilty of her murder.

The 18 year old had been shot four times in the head before her body was buried in a shallow grave where it was discovered four years later, in 2012.

Wilson had pleaded not guilty to her murder at Brabazon Street, The Coombe, Dublin, between January 7th and January 8th, 2008.

Mr Dwyer said that the accusation had caused “hardship due to the portrayal of Mr Wilson in the public eye over a lengthy period of time”.

Counsel also said that his client now intends to live an “honest life” and keeps himself busy in prison by writing a book and composing poetry. He asked the court to backdate the sentence and to suspend a portion of it to give Wilson and his family some hope.

Sentencing

Passing sentence, Ms Justice Burns said that she had received “powerful” victim impact statements from Mr Barrett and Mr Purcell.

She said Mr Barrett had suffered life-changing injuries including “very significant brain damage”.

Mr Purcell, she said, had detailed the “horror of what occurred”, the many procedures that he has had to undergo and the “trauma and fear that have remained for 11 years and probably will remain for the rest of his life”.

Mr Masterson’s injuries, she said, were not life threatening but he had suffered multiple gunshot wounds.

Wilson, she said, has four children after one child died.

He has a previous conviction for conspiracy to murder for which he received a six-year sentence.

In 2019 Wilson pleaded guilty to conspiring to murder Gary Hanley at a location within the State between September 15th and November 6th, 2017.

He was due for release from that sentence in May next year.

The subject of that murder plot was not harmed, Ms Justice Burns noted, because gardaí intervened before Wilson and his co-conspirators could carry out their planned attack.

She also noted that Wilson takes medication daily to treat seizures and a nerve condition but she said the court has not received evidence that he suffers from multiple sclerosis, as was stated at an earlier sentencing hearing.

In relation to the offence before the court, she said it was of the “utmost gravity”.

She said aggravating factors include that it was a conspiracy to carry out murder, the most serious offence there is.

Wilson, she said, acquired two firearms and vehicles for the planned murder and therefore has an “extremely high level of culpability”.

By his own admission, Wilson was acting on behalf of one faction of republican dissidents involved in a feud, but is not himself a member of the dissident group.

The plan, she said, was put into action and three civilians were shot, two of them seriously injured with long-lasting consequences.

She said the offences were at the “highest level” and set the headline sentence for the firearms offence at 12 years, and for the conspiracy charge she set the headline at nine years.

After considering mitigating factors, including Wilson’s guilty plea and his health problems, she reduced the sentences to 10 years and seven-and-a-half years.

Ms Justice Burns said she does not accept that Wilson’s expressions of remorse are genuine, but she believes he regrets involving himself with dissident republicans.

She refused to backdate the sentences, which are to run concurrently from Wednesday. Ms Justice Burns also refused to suspend any portion of the sentence.

Mitigation plea

Before the court passed sentence on Wednesday, Mr Dwyer told the court that, with regards to his client, the Marioara Rostas accusation “caused a lot of suffering in his life” and had caused Wilson and his family “particular harm” leading to “hardship due to the portrayal of Mr Wilson in the public eye over a lengthy period of time”.

Counsel added: “He has also asked me to stress that he is not, although he has been portrayed as, he was not, is not and never was a member of any gang, in particular the Kinahan gang, although he accepts the gardaí had suspicions in relation to that.”

During his trial, retired former head of the National Surveillance Unit William Johnson said he believed in 2017 that Wilson was a member of the Kinahan crime gang.

Continuing his plea in mitigation, Mr Dwyer said his client is taking treatment for a nerve condition and seizures, he has remorse for getting involved in the murder conspiracy and “when he does complete his sentence he wants to lead an honest life”.

Mr Dwyer added: “He would assert that now he is a different person, at a different stage in his life, and keeps busy by writing a book and poetry and letters to the authorities about some of the cases which took place in the past.”

Counsel said Wilson had five children, one of whom died, and he has a close relationship with the remaining four, aged between 11 and 17.

He asked the court to consider backdating Wilson’s sentence and to suspend a portion of it to “offer an inducement to rehabilitation while in prison and it would also offer him some hope and some hope for his family that they would be able to reunite with him at some point in the future”.

Counsel also pointed out that his client pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge as soon as it was offered by the Director of Public Prosecutions and therefore he should get the benefit of an early guilty plea.

Those who enter early guilty pleas can get a reduction of 25 per cent from the headline sentence, Mr Dwyer said. Mr Dwyer said Wilson has written a letter in which he says he was contacted by a faction involved in republican feuds and assisted them by sourcing cars and two guns.

Mr Dwyer said his client “accepts that was wrong and has written to the court apologising for wrongdoing”. Mr Dwyer said that a recording of Wilson in 2017 allegedly claiming that he had carried out the shooting at the Player’s Lounge was “bravado”.

He said: “He was bigging himself up in the company of those with him on the day.” During the trial it emerged that the National Surveillance Unit had planted listening devices in two cars that Wilson was known to be using as he planned with others the murder of Gary Hanley.

In those recordings he was allegedly heard admitting to the attempted murders at the Player’s Lounge in 2010. In one of them, Wilson allegedly said: “Remember the shooting at the Player’s Lounge; I done that.”