A DONEGAL man is one of three men who have been convicted of multiple offences carried out as part of a vigilante attack on men guarding a repossessed farmhouse in Roscommon five years ago.
Following a trial that ran for over three months, the jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court today returned its verdicts.
PJ Sweeney (44), a builder from High Cairn, Ramelton was found guilty of false imprisonment of and assault causing harm to Ian Gordon, Mark Rissen, John Graham, and Gary McCourtney at Falsk, Strokestown on December 16, 2018.
He was also found guilty of aggravated burglary and three counts of arson in relation to three vans which were allegedly set alight.
He was acquitted of one count of arson in relation to a car and the robbery of a wristwatch.
Sweeney was further convicted of criminal damage to a door of a house, violent disorder and to causing unnecessary suffering to an animal by causing or permitting an animal to be struck on the head.
Mayo farmer Martin O’Toole (58) of Stripe, Irishtown, Claremorris and cattle farmer Paul Beirne (56) of Croghan, Boyle, Co Roscommon were also found guilty on a number of charges.
All three men have been remanded in custody for sentencing at the end of this month.
A fourth man facing charges in relation to the same incident was acquitted by the jury. David Lawlor (43), a security worker with an address at Bailis Downs, Navan, Co. Meath, was found not guilty of the 17 charges he faced.
Martin O’Toole was found guilty of false imprisonment of and assault causing harm to Ian Gordon, Mark Rissen, John Graham, and Gary McCourtney at Falsk, Strokestown on December 16, 2018, aggravated burglary amd criminal damage to a door of a house.
He was also convicted by the jury of violent disorder, three counts of arson and of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal by causing or permitting an animal to be struck on the head. by majority verdicts.
He was found not guilty of robbery of a wristwatch and, finally, of arson in relation to a car.
Paul Beirne was found guilty of false imprisonment of and assault causing harm to Ian Gordon, Mark Rissen, John Graham, and Gary McCourtney at Falsk, Strokestown on December 16, 2018.
He was also found guilty of aggravated burglary, three counts of arson, criminal damage, violent disorder and finally, to causing unnecessary suffering to an animal by causing or permitting an animal to be struck on the head.
He was acquitted of robbery of a wristwatch and one count of arson in relation to a car which was allegedly set alight.
The jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts in respect of the charge of violent disorder faced by O’Toole, Sweeney and Beirne. Jurors found the three men guilty by a majority of 11 to one on the 14 other charges of which they were each convicted.
The four defendants had pleaded not guilty to all counts.
INCIDENT
At around 5am on December 16, 2018, a group of approximately 30 armed men smashed their way into a house at a recently repossessed rural property at Falsk, just outside Strokestown, Co Roscommon. They were armed with weapons, including a baseball bat, a meat cleaver, a hurley, a stick with nails in it, and a chain saw and they attacked the men who were guarding the property.
The State’s case was that the four accused and the other men present had gone there to take back the house for the previous owner Anthony McGann and his brother, who had been forcibly removed from the property during a court-ordered eviction five days earlier.
The prosecution said that the men who went to Falsk all shared the common goal of getting the security men off the property and making sure they didn’t come back and that to achieve this, the group engaged in sustained and brutal violence designed to terrorise the men working there.
The case was prosecuted on the legal principle of common design which holds that if two or more people embark on a plan together to commit crimes each person is criminally liable for anything done by the others.
One security guard testified that he was struck to the face with a metal object, beaten on the ground and then forced to eat faeces from his own guard dog. The dog had lost control of its bowels after a number of blows to the head from a baseball bat and was later euthanised.
Some of the victims described men repeatedly jumping on their body and legs. One man said he was attacked with a meat cleaver, hit with a hurley, baseball bat and sticks and had his trousers doused with petrol.
The men testified that they believed they were going to die and others described running for their life from the mob and jumping into a river to escape.
Judge Martina Baxter remanded Sweeney, Beirne and O’Toole into custody to appear again before the court for a sentence hearing on June 30.
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