A judge had commended Robert O’Connor for his willingness to try to turn his life around some 48 hours before the Dubliner was attacked and fatally injured by a group of other prisoners in Mountjoy Prison last Friday.
Sentencing the 34-year-old to 6½ years for a firearms offence at Dublin District Court last Wednesday week, Judge Martin Nolan said he took into account his co-operation with the Garda, his guilty plea and his “ambition to reform and change his lifestyle”.
Some 48 hours later O’Connor of Snowdrop Walk, Darndale, was assaulted in a cell on the C-Division of Mountjoy, in an apparent gang attack, and suffered head injuries. He was taken to the Mater hospital, where he was placed on a ventilator before being pronounced dead on Tuesday night.
His killing is the first in an Irish jail since Graham Johnson, a 42-year-old father of three, was stabbed to death in Cork Prison in May, 2015, over what channel should be on the television. O’Connor’s killing is the first in Mountjoy since Gary Douch (20) was murdered there in August 2006. O’Connor and Douch are members of the same extended family from north Dublin.
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[ Mountjoy prisoner was lured to another cell before fatal attack, gardaí believeOpens in new window ]
While Mountjoy was a once notorious jail, it has undergone extension renovation and improvements, including singe-cell occupancy and the eradication of slopping out.
Some of the men suspected of involvement in the attack on O’Connor have amassed over 100 convictions and one is linked to the Kinahan cartel. He has a conviction for a serious firearms offence and has also been questioned in relation to a Kinahan-Hutch feud murder.
Another of the men is serving a very lengthy sentence for a violent crime with multiple victims. He has also come to the attention of the Garda and prison authorities for another serious crime he was suspected of involvement in a prison setting.
Gardaí believe O’Connor went, with another prisoner, to a cell on the C-Division of the jail just after 5.30pm last Friday. They suspect the prisoners involved in the attack intended to badly beat him but the assault went too far and the O’Connor sustained head injuries that proved fatal. Detectives believe the dead man was lured to the cell for the purposes of the attack.
O’Connor had been in Mountjoy Prison since February and earlier this year asked to be transferred out of A-Division following a dispute with other prisoners. That dispute, as well as O’Connor’s drug use, his involvement in gun crime and a dispute in his personal life were all being explored as possible motives for the fatal attack.
The Irish Prison Service extended its sympathies to O’Connor’s family and friends, saying it was investigating the killing. It added separate inquiries were being conducted by the Garda and Inspector of Prisons. Gardaí were expected to continue gathering evidence in the case — including CCTV footage and forensics from the crime scene and clothing worn by the victim and the suspects — before any arrests would be carried out.
O’Connor was last October caught with a loaded semi automatic pistol in Finglas, Dublin, and was jailed last Wednesday for that crime. Judge Nolan told him last week he must have known the gun was being delivered to other men for a shooting. O’Connor said he had moved the gun to pay off a drugs debt.
