A DUBLIN man who shot his friend with both barrels of a sawn-off shotgun and then threw him from his car was jailed for 12 years yesterday.
Mr Justice Paul Carney sentenced Jonathan Dunne to 12 years for the attempted murder of Ian Kenny in Stillorgan on July 4th, 2007. He also imposed a 10-year prison sentence to run concurrently for the possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life on the same date.
Mr Kenny is in permanent care in St Vincent's hospital, Dublin, where he is fed through a tube and has no control over his bladder or bowels.
Dunne (23), Windmill Court, Crumlin, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court on Monday to the attempted murder of Mr Kenny (21), Monasterboice Road, Crumlin, at Lakelands Road, Stillorgan on July 4th, 2007.
Dunne told gardaí that he had shot Mr Kenny in the head and shoulder with a sawn-off shotgun as a favour he owed to drug dealers because he had lost drugs worth £50,000 when he was a 16-year-old.
Before sentencing Dunne, Mr Justice Carney referred to RTÉ's Joe Duffy whose Liveline programme on Tuesday carried an interview with Mr Kenny's mother, Ms Kathleen Kenny.
"I have not found the interference in this case by Mr Joe Duffy while sentence is a live issue to be helpful," he said. The judge said he would not have any difficulty if any of the parties to the proceedings wanted to refer the interference of Mr Duffy to the Director of Public Prosecutions. He said that any of the parties could make such an application if they wished after a consideration of the transcript.
The judge said that over the last couple of days he had given close consideration to imposing a life sentence for two reasons. Firstly, Mr Kenny's family would hold the view that he has been left in a worse situation than had the attempt to assassinate him been successful, and that Dunne should not benefit from that.
Secondly, the judge said: "The message must go out from this court in the strongest possible terms that the only option to a person in that [Dunne's] situation is to go to the Garda Síochána and place themselves in whatever programme the gardaí are in a position to make available."
The judge added: "It is not acceptable that somebody should come into this court and say 'I attempted to carry out an assassination on the instructions of a nameless godfather and on that account I should be entitled to claim mitigation'."
He said that, accepting Dunne's contentions - and he noted that from the transcript gardaí were careful not to accept his contentions - the only option was for a person to place himself in whatever programme is available.
"Otherwise we are simply handing over to people I am not prepared to hand over control of our lives to," he said. Mr Justice Carney said that while he had considered imposing a life sentence, because of Dunne's extremely young age it might be oppressive to do so and it might shut out all prospects of rehabilitation in the future.
The judge said that the attempted murder merited a sentence of 16 years' imprisonment, but because of the accused's early guilty plea, his youth and his background in employment he sentenced him to 12 years' imprisonment.
Leave to appeal was refused.