Gang leader swore on baby's life not to end feud - court

One of the leaders of the Kinahan organised crime group described the gang's murderous feud with the Hutch organised crime group as "personal" and said that on his "baby's life" he was not stopping now.

Sean McGovern, aged 39, formerly of Kildare Road, Crumlin, Dublin 12, has pleaded guilty to two charges of directing the activities of a criminal gang in relation to the murder of one man and the attempted murder of another between 2015 and 2017.

Details of his involvement are being outlined in the Special Criminal Court today.

The involvement of McGovern in directing members of the Kinahan organised crime group as part of the attempt to murder rival Hutch gang member James Gately was detailed in court today.

McGovern used tracking devices and specially encrypted phones to put Gately’s partner and sister under surveillance while targeting him.

Tracking devices were placed on their cars and McGovern gave instructions to other members of the gangs on what to do and gave updates to fellow Kinahan gang leaders.

A tracker device was also found on Jason Bonney’s car.

Bonney, a builder from Drumnig Wood, Portmarnock, Dublin, is currently serving an eight and a half year jail sentence for helping the Hutch organised crime group commit the murder of David Byrne at the Regency hotel in February 2016.

Following the murder of David Byrne, McGovern told a fellow gang member that "they targeted us, this is personal, on my baby's life I'm not stopping now".

McGovern had also been shot and injured at the Regency Hotel.

Detective Superintendent David Gallagher told the court today that three encrypted devices and six tracker devices were seized as part of the investigation and linked back to the attempted murder of Gately.

In other recovered encrypted messages, McGovern referring to gunmen to carry out the murder, how they "have one team ready" and that Gately was "a weasel" but that "all weasels get caught out in the end".

'Why would you choose to inflict that pain on us?'
The daughter of a man shot dead as part of the ongoing Hutch-Kinahan feud told McGovern he was stupid to think he could get away with it.

McGovern had a significant involvement in the murder of Noel Kirwan, a man who had no involvement in criminality, in December 2016, the Special Criminal Court was told this afternoon.

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The father and grandfather were shot dead by the Kinahan organised crime group because he had attended the funeral of Eddie Hutch and was photographed there with Eddie’s brother Gerard Hutch, the head of the Hutch Organised Crime Group.

McGovern operated from an apartment in the Beacon South Quarter, which the Kinahan gang used as a safe house, along with senior fellow gang member Declan Brady and others.

His fingerprints were found on the laptop used to control the tracker and the instructions for the tracker.

He also used a burner phone to call one of the two gunmen "the unidentified shooter" a number of times before the murder.

There were also messages about the murder on McGovern's encrypted device showing how the gang viewed him as an easy target.

"They're all kamikaze apart from the duck" one of the messages read.

"Kamikaze" refers to how dangerous other targets were while Noel Kirwan's nickname was "duckegg".

In a victim impact statement, Mr Kirwan’s daughter Donna Kirwan told of the grief and pain the family has suffered since his murder.

McGovern, she said, had been shot in the Regency and knew the pain and shock his family had gone through.

"Why would you choose to inflict that pain on us?" she asked him.

"You watched Dad for ten months, this was not organised overnight, you put a lot of time and effort into this and put a tracker on his car and me and my nine year old were in it," she said.

Referring to the Kinahan organised crime group, she told him that "there is not an ounce of intelligence between the lot of you".

She pointed out to him that because he had fled to Dubai after the murder, he could not even attend his own father’s funeral but "had to watch it on a webcam".

"It is not the people you killed who are suffering, it is the people who are left behind," she said.

McGovern did not react to the statement but remained looking at his notes.

The sentence hearing will continue on Friday.