Nicknames given by the media to some of Dublin's underworld figures may have the ring of comic book heroes. But Tommy "The Boxer" Mullen - whose prowess in the ring brought him champion status - is regarded as no hero in the streets of Dublin's north inner city.
The fitness freak who prided himself on his physique went on to wreak havoc on the health of many living in the area in which he was born, even peddling drugs to youngsters he trained in boxing. He never worked a day in his life, but flaunted a lavish lifestyle on the massive profits of his heroin operation, including luxury cars and foreign holidays. Closed circuit cameras guarded his home.
In 1996 Mullen was publicly named as "The Boxer" by Tony Gregory TD, whose Dublin Central Constituency has been plagued by heroin abuse.
"I named three people at the time and I named him specifically because he was the top, if not one of the top, heroin suppliers into Dublin. He was going around in very expensive cars, buying expensive property and nobody was doing anything about him. "When the Revenue Commissioners came to the Dail Security Committee I just couldn't take it any more. They [drug dealers] were being written about in the papers, but we had no answer to it. Every dog in the street knew he was supplying heroin."
Mullen (26) was born and grew up in some of the north inner city communities which have been ravaged by drug addiction. Born in Dominick Street, he lived at Champions Avenue, off Sean McDermott Street, and later at Clonliffe Avenue, before the rewards of his heroin supplying landed him a house in St David's, Artane.
By that time he had chalked up a string of convictions, including larceny, handling and receiving stolen property, and was involved in the supply of ecstasy and cocaine as well as heroin.
Soon after he was named by Tony Gregory, Mullen was interviewed by Sunday Independent journalist Veronica Guerin. It was one of the last articles published before her murder.
Mullen, a former Irish boxing champion, had been regularly targeted by members of the community of St David's in Artane, which had itself been blighted with heroin-related deaths. Parents and the extended families of drugs victims organised protest marches. Once they put a coffin in his front garden and distributed a "Wanted for Murder" leaflet with his photograph on it.
Mullen's home in St David's was recently seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau. A Garda official, in an affidavit to the High Court, said he had bought the house in September 1994 for £84,950. The money had come from an account in the name of John Mullen, his father.
Although Thomas Mullen had no visible means of income, he lived an extravagant lifestyle, travelling around the world to football and boxing matches, as well as frequent jaunts to Liverpool and Amsterdam.
Officials from the Criminal Assets Bureau had investigated the earnings history of John Mullen (63), but had found no trace of taxable income since September 1979. He had, however, been in receipt of Social Welfare disability benefit from that time to January 1984, totalling £14,725.
He collected similar allowances from January 1988 to November 1994 totalling £10,131, and since April 1994 had received an invalidity pension of £66.20 a week.
Officials from the Criminal Assets Bureau believed John Mullen would not have been in a position to acquire the amounts of money described in such a short time and it was likely that the money used to buy the property had come from Thomas Mullen.
In 1996, Mullen went to England, claiming that he was on the run from the IRA. In his first trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court, abandoned last month because the jury was unable to reach a decision, Mullen accused Ms Guerin of being "vindictive" and accused gardai of "spreading lies" about him. He blamed a garda, Det Insp Michael Finn, for telling the press and the IRA that he was involved in drugs. He alleged Insp Finn had told him he was a "marked man" after he gave alibi evidence which acquitted his friend, Mr Geoffrey Ennis, of armed robbery.
During his second trial, which ended yesterday, Mullen implied that the gardai and the IRA were acting together when his friend Gerard Lee, a train robber, was shot dead by the IRA.
"Gerard was not popular with the police in Dublin. I cannot prove that the Irish police gave the information to the IRA that he had large sums of cash and they wanted it off him. So they shot him," he said.
"He is a personal friend of mine and they know I have large sums of cash also. I know the IRA had an interest in me."
Mullen had fled to Spain for two months after this incident. From his criminal income, Mullen financed a luxurious lifestyle in Finchley, north London, initially paying £7,000 in cash to rent his property in Etchingham Park Road.
He also spent £125,000 on a house for his parents and a twomonth holiday in Spain, where he hired two villas for £1,000 a week for his immediate family. All of this was paid in cash.
To avoid suspicion, Mullen would pass himself off to his bank as a building contractor in order to account for the large sums of cash, up to £50,000 at a time, going in and out of his account.
In his defence Mullen told the jury his money came from illegal sources, hinting at two multi-million pound armed robberies in Ireland in the early 1990s. He was arrested by chance leaving a safe depository in Hampstead which was under surveillance in a separate investigation. When police looked in his holdall, they discovered £105,000 in used banknotes, and when they investigated his safe deposit box, they found a further £90,000 in cash and several passports in his name. That lavish lifestyle was a world away yesterday as Mullen was taken from court to begin his 18year sentence in a high-security prison.