LIMERICK SHOOTING:After four years under Garda protection. Roy Collins' family is distraught at his murder, writes CONOR LALLY, Crime Correspondent, in Limerick
THE FATHER of murdered Limerick man Roy Collins has said gardaí “did all they could” to protect his family over the past four years, adding he was determined he would not be forced to leave the city by the gang who killed his son.
Publican Steve Collins, who is originally from Dublin, told The Irish Timesthat his family has been under Garda protection since his stepson Ryan Lee gave evidence in court in 2005 that led to the jailing of leading McCarthy-Dundon gang member Wayne Dundon.
“They did all they could,” he said of the Garda. “They escorted me to work every day and they were outside my business premises and my home. They helped me to improve all my security precautions. I thought what they did was adequate. I have to say I didn’t think they [the gang who killed his son] would get at us, I really didn’t.
But I don’t blame the guards, it’s impossible to protect us 24/7.”
Mr Collins said his family had been “sickened” by the shooting dead of his 35-year-old son, the father of two girls, on Thursday in a family-owned amusement arcade beside their Steering Wheel pub in Roxboro Shopping Centre.
“We’ll never get over this. The people who did this are animals. It’s not human, it’s just not normal. But they won’t run me out.”
When asked if he would be prepared to give evidence against criminals again, he said: “I don’t know, we are so confused. We always questioned if we had done the right thing but it was a decision the whole family made and we felt so bitter about what they did to Ryan.”
He said he was working in his pub next door to the arcade where his son was working on Thursday when he was shot dead.
“A woman came running in and said a chap was bleeding. I ran into the casino and Roy was lying on the floor. He was shot in the back and was crouched over and couldn’t get his breath. He was trying to talk to me but I told him to stop talking,” said Mr Collins.
He described his son, who had no involvement in criminality, as a hard worker who loved his two young daughters from a previous relationship: Shannon (12) and Charlie (8).
“Roy was a lovely, funny guy. A real family man who loved his kids and worked hard all of his life,” he said.
“He had just finished building a beautiful home in Killaloe, Co Clare, and was only telling me the other day about the beautiful kitchen he had ordered for it,” he said.
Mr Collins, who moved to Limerick in 1973 from Dublin where he worked as an electrical contractor, said he and his wife Carmel were devastated by the death of their eldest child.
“It was bad enough what they did to Ryan but now this. We just can’t believe it. It’s a nightmare,” he said.
“Ryan is our adopted son. His Mum and Dad died when he was 13 so we have been looking after him since. He has come a long way since the shooting but he is just devastated by what has happened to Roy. They were like brothers.”
While he regarded as active the threat made against him in a letter during Wayne Dundon’s trial, he believed his family were a little safer with the passage of time.
“Even when Shane Geoghegan was killed last year I thought, ‘They’ll be running scared now, maybe that means we’re a bit safer’.”
When Wayne Dundon was put on trial in 2005 for threatening to kill Ryan Lee, Mr Collins received an anonymous letter. It read: “Steve, if you think it is easy, then think again. Look at all the people that’s dead. Look, if you want to call it quits, you know what to do. If not, we will attack your staff and business. It is up to you.” Garda protection had been provided to him since then.
One of Mr Collins’s pubs, Brannigan’s Bar, was burned down in 2005 after Ryan Lee had been shot while working there. The shooting took place in December 2004 after Mr Lee refused to serve the 14-year-old sister of Wayne Dundon.
Dundon made a gun sign with his fingers and pushed his hand into Mr Lee’s face saying “f*** you, you’re dead”. During Dundon’s trial in 2005 for the murder threat, Mr Lee said that as he stopped Dundon’s sister, Dundon got out of his car and asked “what my problem was”.
He added: “I told him there was no problem but that I needed ID for the younger girl before I let her in. He said, ‘it’s her first f***kin’ night out, give her a break’ and I said that I couldn’t let her in without ID.”
The barman said he was “extremely scared” but relieved when Dundon left with his sister.
Just 24 minutes later a gunman wearing a motorbike helmet returned to the pub and walked up to Mr Lee (then aged 19), pointing a handgun to his head.
The gunman lowered the weapon and discharged one shot into the victim’s knee before appearing to walk away, but shot him a second time, in the groin.
The gunman was chased by a number of customers but he fired a warning shot.
Nobody was ever convicted of the shooting but Dundon was jailed for the murder threat just before the shooting. Dundon was sentenced to 10 years, later reduced to seven, and is still in jail. Dundon was also convicted of assaulting two gardaí while he was in custody being questioned about the arson attack on Brannigan’s pub. One of the gardaí was out of work injured for six months while the other required long-term medical treatment for jaw and teeth injuries.
Dundon, a settled Traveller, lived in the UK until he was 19-years-old. His convictions in the UK include the robbery of a wheelchair-bound man and a 90-year-old woman at her home in London in 1996.
He also has a conviction relating to threats to a prison officer in a public toilet of a Limerick shopping centre. He has also served prison sentences for handling stolen property, dangerous driving offences and for a charge of assault causing harm.