Paul McCarthy denied that Banners Broker was a pyramid scheme

THE website of suspected pyramid scheme Banners Broker was down yesterday as investigators received a court order to go after assets linked to the firm in Canada.

Around 12,000 Irish people invested in the scheme and collectively handed over millions of euro.

Cork man Paul McCarthy was the Irish face of Banners Broker and continuously denied it was a pyramid scheme when quizzed by the Sunday World – but the firm cut all ties with him last year. 

The company, which claimed it could make people rich though online advertising, suffered a major blow earlier this year after liquidators were appointed to Banners Broker International Ltd (BBIL), which was based in the Isle of Man.

This week the liquidators obtained a court order to take control of anything owned by BBIL and to compel its Canadian based operators to reveal the whereabouts of the company’s assets. 

Court papers reveal the growth of the company, how it moved its assets and the efforts by investors to recover their funds. 

Affidavits filed with the court said: “An online cloud-based business, BBIL’s operations were international in scope and  its physical presence in any one jurisdiction was negligible.”

Irish people were among the first to be duped by the scam. Banners Broker Ireland Ltd was set up in December 2011. 

Under an agreement the Irish operation was entitled to 5 per cent of all sales here and 7 per cent if it hit a turnover of more than $100,000 a month. The rest went to BBIL.  

The majority of Irish people who lost money in the scheme may never get any of it back.

Maxine Wilson has been charged with drunkenness and threatening behaviour

THE sister of gun criminal Alan Wilson has been charged with public drunkenness and threatening and abusive behaviour.

Thug Alan (35) was cleared of the murder of teenager Marioara Rostas on July 31 in the Central Criminal Court.

During his trial, the court heard evidence about how bullets were recovered from the wall of the home of Wilson’s sister, Maxine.

Maxine’s partner, convicted criminal Fergus O’Hanlon, turned State witness and gave evidence in court claiming that Alan murdered the Romanian teen. 

But this week, it was Maxine’s turn to come before the judge after she was charged with public order offences.

It is claimed the alleged offences took place at Camden Street, Dublin 2, on August 10 last.

Defence solicitor Matthew de Courcy told Dublin District Court that he was looking for the disclosure of the evidence against Ms Wilson, of New Street Gardens in Dublin 8, as well as any CCTV footage if it is available.

The court heard that Ms Wilson is unemployed and on social welfare.

She has not yet indicated to the court how she will be pleading to the charges but she is expected to enter a plea at the next sitting.

In July, Maxine’s previous home on Brabazon Street in Dublin’s inner city was the centre of a day of crucial evidence given during her brother’s murder trial. 

The court heard how she shared the house with her partner, Fergus O’Hanlon, who was a close associate of Alan (pictured above) at the time. 

The house had been set on fire weeks after Marioara went missing but two rounds of ammunition and a number of bullet holes were still found in a wall there.

Both Wilson and O’Hanlon were arrested in October 2008 and questioned about the murder, but no more progress was made in the investigation until late 2011.

Then, while being questioned about threats to Sunday World reporter Mick McCaffrey, O’Hanlon offered gardai information on the case and in January 2012 led them to

Kippure, a mountainous area on the Wicklow border. Gardai found the teenager’s body in the shallow grave.

O’Hanlon was then admitted into the witness protection programme, was later granted immunity from prosecution and became the State’s main witness in the trial.

He testified that on January 8, 2008, Alan Wilson  showed him a dead girl. O’Hanlon said that they drove up the mountains to Kippure, and the two of them then dug the shallow grave and buried her.

However, O’Hanlon’s evidence regarding Ms Rostas was not accepted in court and on July 31 Alan Wilson was found not guilty of murder.

Ger Dundon was with sister Annabell when the news about Wayne broke

Wayne Dundon

GANGSTER Ger Dundon was devastated when news came through his older brother and gang leader Wayne had been jailed for life.

He went on a wild drugs binge at his Manchester home to dull the pain of knowing three of his brothers are now serving life for murder.

“They were waiting for the Irish phone to ring for the verdict to come through,” a relative explained.

When the bad news filtered through, Annabell told her brother, who didn’t take it well.

“I never seen a man in all my life to take as much drugs, just like he didn’t care. It was as if the life went out of his eyes and that was it,” added the cousin, who later fled in terror from them. 

“They were hoping that if Wayne got away with it, Annabell wouldn’t be done for threats to kill and the two of them would be able to move home,” she said.

“What he wants to do is come home, he wants to live here. They don’t like England, they really don’t,” she explained.

“They looked up to Wayne more than anybody, Wayne was more of a father figure to them than their own father. They see him as the king,” she added.

“The minute they got the phone call that he got life they just lost control.”

Raonaid Murray

Raonaid Murray funeral

Suspect in Raonaid Murray murder

Suspect in Raonaid Murray murder

Suspect in Raonaid Murray murder

Raonaid Murray as a child

Scotts Pub

A list of twenty-two ‘red alert’ suspects has been drawn up in the murder investigation into teenager Raonaid Murray.

Most are local men who knew the teenager and gardai now believe that one of them is being protected by someone close, who has either given a false alibi or failed to come forward with information.

Officers now believe that Raonaid was stabbed in a fit of rage but her attacker never meant to kill her.

A massive 210 ‘suspects’ emerged in the original garda probe which is by far and away the largest homicide investigation ever conducted in Ireland.

A mammoth file into the 17-year-old’s  brutal death has been compiled – but her killer remains at large despite Raonaid being last seen alive a little more than an hour before her body was discovered yards from her home.

Among those nominated were known rapists, men with histories of violence towards women and many who simply looked like one of the five photofits publicised during the course of the investigation.

Two sons of a well-known person were among those put forward by members of the public as possible killers.

For years the ‘suspects’, now referred to as ‘persons of interest’, were bulked together in the murder file that grew to colossal proportions in Dun Laoghaire garda station.

But following a fresh investigation of the case by the Garda’s Serious Crime Review team, the list has finally been categorised into 22 people who remain at a ‘red alert’ level.

They include a number of local men who knew Raonaid socially – and some who friends say were obsessed with the bright and bubbly teenager.

The cold case review into Raonaid’s murder on September 4  1999, 15 years ago this week, was the biggest ever undertaken by gardai. It involved a trawl through the 3,500 statements taken during house-to-house inquiries and interviews with friends, associates and eye witnesses who saw her in the run-up to her death.

All had to be rechecked and cross-referenced for inconsistencies, many have been re-interviewed and an on-going DNA trawl is continuing.

While unidentified female DNA was discovered underneath one of Raonaid’s nails, officers have been told that it is not necessarily that of her killer. 

She could have picked up the genetic fingerprint anywhere and had spent her last day working in a busy women’s clothes shop in Dun Laoghaire before meeting a friend for a drink at Scotts pub.

Raonaid died from massive blood loss during the attack. A large stab wound to her shoulder which severed a vein caused a huge haemmorage, but she was also stabbed in the arm and abdomen.

Tragically, it was her sister Sarah who found Raonaid’s lifeless body after returning with friends from a night out just after 12.30am. 

The group were drawn to something lying in the laneway near the house at Silchester Park in Glenageary and realised it was Raonaid. One tried to revive the teenager while another called the emergency services.

Sarah ran the 500 yards from the laneway to her family home where her mum Deirdre, dad Jim and brother Daniel had retired to bed for the night.

Within hours of the discovery of her body officers immediately retraced Raonaid’s movements and it emerged that she had gone for a drink with a friend at 9.40pm in her regular haunt, Scotts pub. 

While there she phoned a pal who was socialising in Dalkey and arranged to meet her in Dun Laoghaire just before midnight so they could go to the Paparazzi nightclub together. 

She left Scotts at 11.20pm saying she wanted to slip home and change her clothes before returning to the town for her night out.

But she never made it back. One witness believes that she saw Raonaid arguing with a man on her way up Glenageary Road but her actual route home is still unsure.

When she was found she still had her handbag around her and shopping bags by her side along with a mobile phone. She was neither robbed nor sexually assaulted.

When officers from the Garda Serious Crime Review team and a new local team headed up by Detective Chief Superintendent Kevin Dolan and Chief Superintendent Diarmuid O’Sullivan took on the review of the case they concentrated on tightening the probe and set up a clear structure to eliminate any suspects they could. 

It is now hoped that one individual who has provided a fake alibi or that the killer themselves may come forward.

Of those who remain on red alert or high end ‘person of interest’ are:

A local man who was dating a friend of Raonaid’s. When his flat was searched pornographic drawings of women being abused by animals were discovered. A leading psychiatrist told investigating officers that the drawings indicated the man had extreme issues with female domination and violence. He claims he was driving his car in the area at the time of the murder.

A hotel worker who had been accused of falsely imprisoning a woman and has since been accused of assaulting another female. He claimed not to know Raonaid but co-workers insisted that he did know her.

A butcher who was violent towards a girlfriend and allegedly bragged about killing Raonaid.

A local chef who a taxi driver insisted he had picked up on the night with blood on his trousers.

An oddball and fantasist who friends say was obsessed by Raonaid and who lived near the scene.

A known rapist who attended a district court in the town in the days after the murder.

A bar man who friends say ‘fancied’ Raonaid but never went  out with her. He has since been found in possession of a sword and threatened a partner with a knife.

Gardai say that the investigation into Raonaid’s murder is still top priority at Dun Laoghaire where a full incident room is still in place.

Anyone with information should contact Dun Laoghaire Garda station on 6665000 and ask to speak to the incident room. Or phone the Garda Confidential Line on 1800666111. A substantial reward remains in place for anyone who comes forward with information that could lead to the killer.

Kevin Murphy

Murphy leaving court in 2013

The devastated mum of a young woman raped by sex beast Kevin Murphy said she is “disgusted” to learn he was working on a school construction site.

Last week, the Sunday World exclusively revealed how convicted child rapist Murphy (38), had been employed as a carpenter on the grounds of a secondary school in Milltown, Co. Kerry.

The serial sex offender spent the last month working on an €8million school building next to present school.
Murphy shamelessly decided to get a job beside hundreds of teen and pre-teen girls, despite the fact he was sentenced to six years in prison for brutally raping a child in her bed in 2004.

Speaking this week, the mother of Murphy’s victim said she was sickened to learn that her daughter’s abuser was employed in a school building project close to her home.

“It has been horrendous, everything is on lockdown by me and I’m traumatised,” she said.

Murphy had been working on a construction site next to Milltown Presentation School, which has over 600 pupils. The building site is fenced off from the current school, but is part of the same land bank. 

However, Murphy’s employment was terminated last week after the Sunday World contacted his employer to inform them of the situation.
This week, his victim’s mother said her daughter never recovered from the sick abuse she suffered at his hands.

“My daughter has lived in hell for the last 10 years. She has been distant and we are in constant fear. We’re the ones in fear and everything is a step at a time. Only last week she was suffering flashbacks. 

“It seems that he can walk around with immunity yet, as a family, it has broken us.”

Murphy was sentenced to six years in prison in the Central Criminal Court in 2004.

Murphy told the court that he spent most of the day the rape occurred – February 11, 2003 – in the pub and drank up to 20 pints. 
He said he gained access to the victim’s house through the back door, which was open. Murphy said he saw a figure sleeping on a couch who he thought was the victim’s mother. He said he had sex with the person and only realised it was the then 12-year-old girl when she woke.

He was also accused of sexually abusing two other underage girls – an 11-year-old and a nine-year-old – in Co. Kerry the 1990s. A file was sent to the DPP in relation to the nine-year-old, but no charges were ever brought.
In February, he pleaded guilty to the sexual assault of a woman in Bishopstown in Cork City in 2013.

He received just a seven-month suspended sentence in Cork District Court.

Fox man .jpg

Fox1.JPG

GARDAI have launched a probe into a Waterford gangster’s video of dogs savagely ripping a fox limb from limb as the thug and his associates cheer them on.

The sick video was obtained by the Sunday World last week and sparked outrage among animal lovers. 
The man who posted the video is a notorious traveller criminal whose activities we have highlighted on numerous occasions over the past year.  

Since the video was posted he has uploaded pictures of himself holding a dead fox online. 
It has now emerged that those involved in illegal dogfights and blood sports in Waterford have been stealing dogs recently. 

In one incident just over a week ago they stole a dog from a woman in Brownstown. 
Waterford Sinn Fein Councillor John Hearne said locals managed to get the dogs back after those who stole it initially denied any knowledge.

“One of our local councillors Jim Griffin and a local farmer went up to the halting site and said if the dog wasn’t given back they’d get the guards down. They threw the dog back out,” said Hearne.

It is believed gang members involved in the fox video were training their dogs to kill for their entertainment.  

The gang boss was the prime suspect behind the rape of a 12-year-old girl in Waterford a number of years ago and is the figurehead of a mob involved in drugs, illegal money lending and numerous other crimes in the city. 

The gang has also been behind intimidation and threats to kill a witness to prevent a court case involving a memeber of the gang leader’s family going ahead. 
Cllr Hearne, who has had his car petrol-bombed and has faced down death threats from the gang, has forwarded the video obtained by the Sunday World on to Gardai in

Waterford who said they will investigate the matter. 

“This man needs to be put away. We all know who he is. We need anybody who is aware of this activity to come forward,” Cllr Hearne said.

Meanwhile, a €15,000 drug seizure in the city has been linked to the gang behind the video. The drugs were discovered following a raid on a house last week. It is believed the brother of the gang leader owned the drugs.

Benny Whitehouse

Thugs dropped boulder on Benny's car

Scene where Benny Whitehouse was killed

Dougie Moran

Huddled together in grief, the Whitehouse family are a people under siege.

When Benny Whitehouse died after being blasted at point-blank range outside a school in Balbriggan, it was exactly a year since a relentless campaign of harassment began.

Benny and his brothers were forced to move back to the family site in the north County Dublin countryside after their houses were targeted by an organised crime gang.

Houses were smashed up and cars were torched, while men claiming links to paramilitaries demanded the brothers hand over cash.

Speaking to the Sunday World in the wake of the brutal murder, a family relative denied reports Benny was involved in the drugs trade.

They claimed the campaign of intimidation began after family members had refused to sell drugs for the gang in the Balbriggan area.

The men suspected to be behind the campaign have a notorious reputation within the traveller community, according to Sunday World sources.

Based in counties Louth and Dublin, the gang are known to supply drugs to criminal gangs across Ireland.

Sources claim the pair even tried to claim they were behind the murder of Stephen ‘Dougie’ Moran in a bid to boost their fearsome reputation.

One of the gangsters lives on a halting site, while the other built an ornate mansion for his family. Last month the pair were blamed for inflicting a savage beating on a man at a wedding in County Louth.

Both men are believed to be the target themselves of another serious criminal outfit, Sunday World sources claim.

The Whitehouses became targets of the gang after their refusal to do the gangsters’ bidding, according to a close relative of Benny. The relative asked not to be named because they fear further retaliation.

“They accused him of reporting them to the guards. To the day, yesterday a year ago, they started ringing the women of the family, using IRA names, trying to tax the family €30,000,” he said.

“When we found out who was making the calls he started smashing up houses, he took Benny’s dogs. When he smashed Benny’s windows, Benny got evicted from his house,” he added.

Five houses were attacked, some of them more than once, in a bid to keep pressure on the family and an attempt was made to run over Benny.

The relative of the dead man  admitted members of the family retaliated once when they attempted to attack one of the gang members in an unplanned incident, after a bid had been made to kidnap Benny.

“They took everything from him. Benny lost his home, now he’s lost his life over them lads,” said the relative.

He pointed to a Nissan Micra on the family halting site with a dented roof and cracked windscreen, explaining that the gang had dropped a boulder on it as Benny drove under a bridge. His two little girls, now aged four and seven, were in the car at the time.

The two girls are being cared for by relatives while their mother, Natasha White, recovers in hospital. She is still being treated for gun wounds that shattered her leg.

“Benny wasn’t involved in any gangland stuff like that. All he lived for was his kids. They tortured him,” the source said.

The family believe the gangsters had waited for their chance to get to Benny, who insisted that his children should go to school and have a normal life despite the threats.

“Benny used to drive his kids to the front of school. At one stage there would be a garda waiting for him,” he explained.

“When this all slackened off, he’d park around the corner where this happened. 

“He got a different car only a couple of weeks ago. They were obviously following him,” he added.

The 35-year-old was hit with several bullets by a lone gunman seconds after he dropped his daughter off.

His innocent partner Natasha  was hit as she tried to escape from the hail of bullets.

The gunman, who wore a balaclava, escaped in a dark Ford Focus car, which was later found burned out in the Naul area of North Dublin.

Paul Rice (in sunglasses) carries Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh's coffin

Paul Rice and Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh

Hatchet Kavanagh and son Jamie

Harmon's Bar Marbella

Feared enforcer Paul Rice reared his head for the first time since Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh was gunned down in a Spanish bar – to bury his best pal.

Our photographs show the hardman carrying the coffin as mourners gathered for the funeral mass of the 46-year-old drug dealer who was murdered in Harmon’s bar in Marbella three weeks ago.

Rice has been lying low and in fear for his life since the killing and has been moving from hotel to hotel in the capital.

Sources say he trusts nobody since his friend was gunned down and is only keeping a tight group of associates informed of his movements.

Rice was mentioned from the altar during the funeral service at the Church of Good Counsel on Mourne Road, Drimnagh.

Kavanagh was brought to the church in a horse-drawn carriage, where priest Fr Sean McArdle told the congregation that his death was “violent and senseless”.

Kavanagh’s champion boxer son Jamie Kavanagh, daughter Kyah and wife Tracey Brady led the mourners as undercover Gardai watched nearby.

Hatchet’s uncle Jimmy O’Hanlon described the drug dealer as a “Santa Claus” who always returned from Spain with “presents for everybody”.

He said Hatchet loved his children and never missed one of his son Jamie’s fights.

He told a story about how he had once met Rice and Kavanagh when they had arrived in from Spain.

“It was the first time that I had seen him [Hatchet] with his head shaved and Paul Rice asked me ‘how do you think he got here?’

“I said he got the plane and Rice said no. I then said he drove and Rice again said no. Paul Rice said look again and he then said Gerard flapped his ears and he got over that way.”

It is not known whether or not the Kavanagh family will remain in Spain, where they moved 13 years ago when he entered the big league of drug dealers.

They have had a charmed existence on the Costa del Sol, but without Hatchet’s earnings from the drug industry they may not be able to sustain their lavish  lifestyle.

Wife Tracey has a beauty salon near Benalmadena, where she had lived with her husband over the past decade.

Daughter Kyah is a darling of the showjumping circuit and son Jamie recently moved back to train at the Matthew Macklin gym, with Daniel Kinahan operating as his manager.

Ignatius and Margaret Mitchell

Ignatius and Margaret Mitchell

John Paul Mitchell

A couple whose son died of a drug overdose in prison are demanding an inquiry into how he got his hands on drugs in St Patrick’s Institution for Young Offenders.

John Paul Mitchell was found dead in his cell on December 13, 2003 – months before he was due to complete a four-year term for larceny.

His mum Margaret says her 20-year-old boy had been drug free, looking forward to getting temporary release at Christmas and full of hopes for his future.

An inquest into his death found that he died from misadventure after taking up to 13 ecstasy tablets in his solitary cell.

Margaret and husband Ignatius Mitchell say they have been searching for answers since they received a call from a priest to say John Paul had been found dead.

“I had been to see him a week previous for his 20th birthday and he was in great form,” said a tearful Margaret this week.

“We were waiting for word to see if he had got temporary release to come home for the Christmas. And he was due out in two months anyway.

“He told me he wanted to change his life. Then a few days later, on the evening of December 12, he rang me and he just wasn’t himself. He was angry and full of fear.

“I don’t know what it was, but I kept ringing St Pats that night. I wanted someone to check on him. I rang and rang, but never got through. I knew something was not right.”

Margaret had been a weekly visitor to John Paul since he was locked up aged 16 for his role in a larceny. On the morning of December 13, she awoke with a sense of dread. 

“I was just having a cup of tea when the phone rang. It was a Father Michael Shiels from the prison service. He said John Paul was found dead in his cell. At that moment a part of me died.”

As the family searched for answers to what had happened in the ‘drug free’ unit where their son was incarcerated, Christmas came and went without any joy.

Margaret says that over the holiday two friends of her boy who had been jailed with him at the time of his death told her he had managed to source the drugs inside. When it came to the inquest they failed to testify and both have since emigrated and made no contact with the family.

“He was drug free for 16 tests previous to that night so we know he wasn’t taking anything,” she said.

“The State took him into their care and that’s where he died, so they have to tell me how that happened. I won’t be satisfied until there is a full inquiry.”

During an inquest in 2004, the former deputy governor of the prison said that even a ‘24-hour lockdown’ wouldn’t stop narcotics entering the prison.

The court heard John Paul had been checked on a half hourly basis through the flap on his door, but his face couldn’t be seen during these checks.

The inquest heard that John Paul had a history of drug use, including taking ecstasy every day when he was 14 years old, but had been doing his best to remain drug free.

The jury passed a verdict of death by misadventure.

David Curran

Reporter Niall Donald with David Curran

David Curran

David Curran's family home after fire

Mariusz Szwajkos

Pawel Kalite

Hate-filled killer David Curran puffs away at a cigarette as he is lead away in handcuffs from the Mater Hospital last Wednesday – just two days after his family home was burned to the ground.

Double murderer Curran (22), got a brief taste of freedom when he was brought for an X-ray in the Dublin city centre hospital this week.

The vicious thug is currently serving two life sentences for brutally stabbing Pawel Kalite (28) and Mariusz Szwajkos (27), to death with a screwdriver in Drimnagh, west Dublin.

The violent and senseless nature of the savage double killing sent shockwaves across Ireland and Poland and lead to a national debate about out-of-control ‘feral’ teens.

Ironically, Curran’s 30-minute glimpse of freedom came in the same week his family had to flee the safety of their own home after an arson attack.

A gang of thugs poured petrol in the front door of the Curran family home on Captain’s Road, Crumlin, on Monday before setting fire to the fuel.

But when asked if he wished to speak about the arson attack on his family by the Sunday World, Curran responded in his usual manner, saying: “F**k you, ya f**kin scumbag. No comment.”

Last Monday, Elizabeth Curran, her 21-year-old son, two teenage sons and her young teenage daughter had to jump out of an upstairs window to escape death.

Neighbours described hearing screams coming from the house in the Crumlin area of Dublin after the blaze broke out in the hallway at 2.40am.

Gardai have yet to make any arrests, but believe the Curran family may have fallen foul of a local gang.

It is believed that members of the Curran family were targeted by a gang of young men who are involved in anti-social behaviour and drug crime in the south inner-city area.

Evil David Curran is currently serving his sentence in Arbour Hill Prison, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7.

The jail is typically used to house sex offenders, but also contains a number of other inmates who are at risk from attack in the general prison population.

Despite Curran’s slim build and height, he was carefully monitored at all times by at least three prison officers during his visit to the Mater Hospital.

Just before noon, an unmarked prison car arrived at the hospital and parked at the new entrance on the North Circular Road. Curran was taken out of the van while still handcuffed as two officers walked on either side of him and a third walked in front of him.

Bemused patients – one of whom contacted the Sunday World – looked on as he was walked to the X-ray department. 

A source told the Sunday World that Curran had spent a “significant” amount of time on protection in a number of other prisons before he was transferred to Arbour Hill.

“He has never been popular in prison and had to spend a good portion of his time on protection. He is still a violent and erratic little man. I wouldn’t turn my back on him,” said our source.

The Curran family moved to Captain’s Road about two years ago from their previous home in Lissadell Green in Drimnagh.

Shortly after scumbag David was convicted of double murder, his father Michael McGuirk was also locked up for his role in a violent crime.

Dad-of-five McGuirk was jailed for 10 years for his role in a €250,000 tiger kidnapping in Inchicore in October 2009.

In February 2008 the Central Criminal Court heard how David Curran claimed he launched the sickening attack on the two Polish men after hearing his “da” had been stabbed.

The vicious thug – who had spent the day drinking and taking drugs – claimed to have lost control after he received a call on his mobile saying his father was attacked. However, this evidence was rejected by the defence who described is as a “concoction”.

During the trial, it emerged that Curran snr had confronted Mr Kalite outside a chipper in Drimnagh.

Witness Ian Flynn said: “I seen the Polish lad walk out of the chipper. The kid bumped into him and he chased the young lad around.

“When they went over to the butcher, some guy came out of nowhere and pushed the Polish lad up against the shutters and told him to leave it out.”

Seconds later, two teenage girls emerged from the chipper and attacked the Polish man.

Eyewitness Tracey Dillon told the trial: “The lad in the grey tracksuit, the two young girls and this older chap were basically killing the bald chap on the ground. They were kicking him.”

A few minutes later, another group of teenagers arrived in front of the shops and one of them, David Curran, was carrying a screwdriver. 

Butcher Darren Lee recognised him as a well-known local thug, who was known by his nickname, Schillaci.

In the meantime, Pawel Kalite and Mariusz Szwajkos returned to their home after getting away from the mob.

Curran then went to the victims’ home and stabbed both men within seconds.

In a victim impact statement, Mr Kalite’s family said they would never recover from his death: “For a long time we were crying several times a day, our view of the world as a safe and fair place changed since Mariusz’s death.”  

Summing up, Justice Liam McKechnie described  the attack as sinister and violent.

“There’s something profoundly sinister in what he did and how he did it.  There were no blows to the arms, legs or torso and there wasn’t even an attempt to do so,” he said.

“With lethal accuracy, David Curran aimed at probably the most vulnerable part of the human body, the temple. Then by a single blow, which penetrated the skull, he caused his [Mr Kalite’s] death. There was no possibility of recovery,” he continued. 

“That blow wasn’t enough. He removed the screw driver and with the same lethal accuracy, aiming it at the same point, and in the same way he murdered Mariusz.”

Christy Kinahan jnr and Georgina Corish

Nidge and Trish

Rose Lynch

Love/Hate's Lizzie

Alan Ryan and 'Catherine'

Darren and Rosie

April Collins

Love/Hate's Siobhan

Love/Hate's Nadine

Olivia Hendrick

THEY are real-life gangland WAGs who have served as the inspiration for the glamorous gangster’s molls on RTE’s Love/Hate.

The adventures of Nidge, Darren and Fran have kept the nation glued to the screen since the show was first aired in 2010.

However, the wives and girlfriends of the fictional gangsters have also shown they are no angels by getting involved in everything from murder to drug smuggling.

And just like in real life, behind every fictional gangster there has been a broken-hearted woman trying to keep their relationship together. The Sunday World looks at the real-life WAGs who have helped inspire the gritty gangland show.

Aido's Nadine and Olivia Hendrick

While some of other Love/Hate WAGs have managed to keep their hands clean, Aido’s partner Nadine has played an active role in transporting drugs for Nidge’s gang.

Aido convinced her to ferry drugs from the UK and, in one scene, she famously uses a concealed Kinder Egg to get heroin into the prison.

Just like Nadine, Olivia Hendrick has played a key role in the operation of a notorious gang from Ballyfermot in west Dublin and also got caught sneaking drugs into jail.

Her criminal record includes convictions for bringing drugs into a prison, possession of drugs with intent to sell or supply and social welfare fraud.

Similar to Nadine in Love/Hate, Hendrick allowed her home to be used as a base to mix and bag huge quantities of drugs at her boyfriend’s behest.

In January 2008, gardai raided her home and found a man with half a kilogram of heroin in the kitchen. He was putting it into individual one-ounce bags.

The total seizure was worth €991,000 and gardai also found €11,000 in cash and several mobile phones.

In court, Hendrick (39) claimed she had been sucked into a life of crime by her association with a known gangland criminal.

The court heard how she had come under the influence of a “bullying partner” who was a “strong personality”.

She was sentenced to seven years in prison and was recently released. She has not come to the attention of the gardai since.

Lizzie and Rose Lynch 

There can be no doubt that the life and crimes of double killer Rose Lynch served as inspiration for the character Lizzie.

Both women came from Republican families and ended up carrying out murders in the name of ‘the cause’.

Rose was born and reared in Ballinacurra Weston in Limerick – the same area that spawned crime families like the Dundons and the Collins.

At age five she joined Fianna Eireann and at 16 became a member of the IRA. 

After finishing school she moved to England where she married John Bardon. The couple had four children and Rose became qualified in psychology and social work before moving to Belfast, where she became involved in Sinn Fein community initiatives.

However, in 1998 she first met Dermot Gannon – a notorious CIRA leader from Mulhuddart in Dublin.

He was married and a father of four but the pair forged a deep bond and began a relationship that divided her family. 

After CIRA chief Liam Kenny was murdered by masked men in 2011, Gannon vowed to hit back and Lynch was recruited by the dissident group to carry out a series of revenge attacks.

Lynch (50) was jailed for life for shooting David Darcy to death with a handgun outside his home in Ballyfermot, west Dublin.

The blonde mum targeted the innocent dad of two because she mistakenly believed he was involved in the fatal shooting of Liam Kenny.

Rosie and Alan Ryan's 'Catherine'

Unlike the other Love/Hate wags, Rosie refused to accept her partner’s life of crime and ended her relationship with Darren when she found out he was still up to no good.

The pretty shop worker would not turn the blind eye and forced hitman Darren to choose between being a gangster or her.

The storyline echoes a real life dilemma faced by a woman who fell in love with RIRA terror chief Alan Ryan.

Catherine (not her real name) gave birth to Alan Ryan’s baby months after he was murdered by a hitman in north Dublin.

The college-educated woman met Ryan in a city centre pub and she did not know he was a RIRA terrorist when she fell pregnant.

Ryan (32) – nicknamed ‘The Model’ – is believed to have had affairs with dozens of women, many of whom he seduced in The Player’s Lounge in Fairview on Dublin’s northside. 

Within a few days, Catherine knew she was head over heels in love with the charming and handsome criminal. But three weeks into the whirlwind romance, Catherine was left traumatised when she decided to Google her new man and discovered his dark past.

As soon as she learned of Ryan’s involvement with RIRA, Catherine brought their relationship to an end and cut all contact with him.

However, just one month  later, she was forced to make contact again after she was discovered she was pregnant.

Catherine asked him to change his ways and give up his involvement with the RIRA.

However, when he refused to leave the terrorist organisation she cut all ties with Ryan.

Just a few weeks later, he was murdered and Catherine left the country so he son would be raised without being tainted by Ryan’s murderous legacy. 

Siobhan and April Collins

Siobhan started off as a fiercly loyal WAG who wouldn’t say a word to the cops about her partner, Tommy, or his friends.

But as her disgust with their murdering ways grew – she started to have second thoughts and opened up to the gardai.

In the latest episode of Love/Hate, Siobhan can be seen getting into a car and telling Detective Inspector Mick Moynihan about the latest comings-and-goings of her uncle Nidge’s gang.

Like Siobhan, April Collins was so trusted by her partner’s gang that she was able to overhear evidence of murder plots and assassination attempts.

But following the breakdown of her relationship to Ger Dundon, April decided to break her silence and give evidence against the McCarthy-Dundon gang. 

April’s evidence against John Dundon resulted in him being found guilty of the murder of rugby player Shane Geoghegan, who was shot dead by Dublin hitman Barry Doyle in November 2009 in a case of mistaken identity.

April was the chief State witness in the trial during which she admitted witnessing him ordering the hit on the intended target, Dundon rival John McNamara, less than 48 hours before Shane Geoghegan’s death.

Her sister, Lisa, corroborated her evidence. She too had been present during this discussion

Despite cutting ties with the Dundon family, April’s taste in men has shown no sign of improving, falling head over heels for rapist Thomas O’Neill.

Sex beast O’Neill (23) was caged for ten years for his role in a sickening gang rape in Co Clare in 2007.

He was part of a four-man gang who locked the victim’s boyfriend in the boot of a car before taking turns to rape her.

The thugs even threatened to set fire to the car with the man trapped inside if she resisted them.

Nidge's Trish and Georgina Corish

Fictional WAG Trish is the ultimate pampered gangland housewife – not working, raising her kids and keeping out of her husband’s life of crime.

She lives in a plush detached home in suburbia, has access to bundles of cash and is kept, largely, ignorant of the drug trade that pays for her comforts. 

Just like Trish, Georgina Corish also lives the good life and is kept cocooned far away from her husband’s criminal activities. 

In 2007, Georgina married one of the crown princes of the Kinahan drug empire, Christopher jnr – the son of godfather Christy Kinahan – and has been living the good life ever since.

Last year, she moved to her new gated villa in the hills above San Pedro de Alcantara, where there is plenty of space for her growing family, a massive outdoor swimming pool overlooking the coast below and the best fixtures and fittings money can buy.

Unlike other young mums who struggle to get by, hers is a charmed existence and there is plenty to go around.

She spends her days on Puerto Banus’s private beaches, where she sips Champagne without a care in the world, partying at the plush Ocean Club, another Kinahan haunt, and posing beside the yacht they often charter like top celebrities for sunbathing at sea.

Karen Deveraux and her boyfriend Greg Lynch (inset)

Simoan McEnroe with Liam Byrne

Michelle and Gary Finnegan

Behind every great man there is a great woman, or so the saying goes.

In the murky underworld of crime, however, it is sure that behind every bad man there is a woman who loves her bling.

There was a time when a gangster’s moll was happy with a two-up two-down in inner-city Dublin that she could call her own, but nowadays it is glamour all the way and the ladies of gangland are expected to look the part from top to toe.

Gary Finnegan is a gangland associate aligned to the Kinahan drug cartel, but he is also a family man who loves his wife Michelle and their two children.

For her part, the girl from Sheriff Street loves to spend her days in the gym to keep her figure in shape and dresses in sky-high heels and short dresses.

Hubby Gary was arrested as part of the Operation Shovel multi-agency offensive against the Kinahan gang and is one of Daniel Kinahan’s closest pals. He moved his family out to Marbella this summer, as sources say he feared for his life in Dublin.

The couple moved into a plush pad complete with swimming pool and socialised by night with the Costa mob, but it is understood they are now back in Dublin due to family commitments.

Bagging a big name in the underworld is seen as a badge of honour for the women who manage to hook a top man, but that can often come at a price, as leggy Karen Devereux knows only too well.

She is the stunning brunette who has stood by her man Greg Lynch after he narrowly escaped with his life in October 2013, after being shot in the face. She spent days and nights camped beside the bedside of the feared crime boss. 

Lynch – regarded as one of the city’s biggest drug dealers by gardai – was standing outside a pub on Hanlon’s Corner, near Cabra in Dublin, when a masked gunman emerged from a car and opened fire, hitting him in the head and face.

As well as losing a section of his jaw in the attack, a bullet lodged behind his left eye. Lynch was put into a medically-induced coma and doctors managed to successfully operate and save his sight.

Pretty mum-of-one Deveraux has been a constant source of support to Lynch, and is said to be fiercely protective of her partner. The couple have a young son together and share a home in Dublin’s south inner-city.

Unlike some women linked to gangland criminals, Karen – who is originally from the south inner-city – pays her own way and works for a respectable company.

According to Land Registry documents, she is the sole owner of the house she shares with Lynch.

Karen counts Simoan McEnroe – gangster Liam Byrne’s girlfriend – as one of her closest pals.

A source has told the Sunday World that Karen has been in a relationship with Lynch since he was released from prison in the late 2000s.

In 2004, Lynch was jailed for eight years after being nabbed with €400,000 worth of heroin. He was observed placing a black holdall into the boot of a car as another vehicle pulled up.

Lynch beckoned the other driver towards him. Both men were arrested after the accused handed over the bag.

However, like their men, some other gangsters’ molls love to live fast and spend, spend, spend.

Joanne Kavanagh, wife of convicted criminal Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh, treated 23 of her closest gal pals to a week’s holiday at The Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas to celebrate her 40th birthday.

The group splashed out at the massive casino, shopped at the resort’s Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior shops – and partied hard.

While Bomber, a cousin of slain enforcer Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh, has no convictions for drug trafficking, he has been closely linked to Fat Freddie’s drug mob and moved to Birmingham after the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) seized his home.

There he and Joanne, a sister of feared drug lieutenants David and Liam Byrne, live like millionaires and love splashing their cash every time they return home in top-of-the-range cars.

Sources say that they drive from the U.K. back to visit relatives in Crumlin and Drimnagh in expensive cars and enjoy bringing pals on nights out where they splash out on bottles of Cristal Champagne.

Joanne’s brother Liam is now based in sunny Spain with his partner Simoan, who looks every bit the gangster’s moll when she dresses up for a night out.

She accompanied Joanne on her lavish 40th celebrations to Vegas  and the pair are close pals who always keep in touch and regularly visit one another for girly weekends.

Simoan and Liam relocated to Puerto Banus after the feared criminal believed he would be targeted for his involvement in organised crime.

The Byrne family are originally from Raleigh Square in Crumlin, where father ‘Jaws’ first rose to prominence in organised crime. The 60-year-old was recently forced to pay CAB a large tax bill.

But dating a mobster can also have its downsides and sometimes when a man is locked up it is time for a moll to look elsewhere.

Brazilian prostitute Zelandia Silva posted these pics online

Brazilian prostitute Zelandia Silva posted these pics online

Brazilian prostitute Zelandia Silva and engineer-turned-pimp Thomas Lyons

These are the sleazy pictures that show how a government adviser was hooked into becoming a secret €10,000-a-month brothel king.

Brazilian vice girl Zelandia Silva flaunts the curves that tempted married Thomas Lyons to become her boyfriend.

The relationship launched him on the road to building his own sex empire, which came crumbling down when the pair pleaded guilty to brothel keeping.

The Sunday World can reveal that Lyons was raking in up to €10,000 a week from a string of sex dens in Limerick and Dublin, and is now facing a €1million bill from the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB).

He used his background as a respectable engineer – who advised government departments – to rent properties for the sex trade.

He stiffed other vice gangs for at least €700 a week for properties, for which he was paying just €700 a month, according to Sunday World sources.

He embarked on his vice career after hooking up with sex worker Silva.  

The traffic consultant, who has since left his family home in Malahide, north Dublin, used his earnings to buy properties in Ireland and a villa in Lanzarote.

Lyons even used notepaper from the respectable engineering firm he worked for to help out hookers who had problems with immigration visas.

The cheeky sleaze merchant was caught red-handed after a painstaking Garda surveillance operation that lasted more than a year.

When armed Gardai burst into one of the Limerick brothels run by Lyons, they found seven women working as prostitutes and two men acting as security guards.

Incredibly, Lyons didn’t know Gardai had raided the property and thought the sex-for-sale gang had done a runner, leaving the apartment door smashed in.

He then went to the nearby Henry Street Garda Station to make a complaint that a burglary had taken place and within days had it up and running again as a knocking shop.

The brothel was visible from the Garda station, where the operation was based to bust Lyons’s and Silva’s vice ring.

Lyons started visiting Silva in 2005 before cashing in on the city’s lucrative sex trade, becoming “one of the biggest on the go” in Limerick, according to a Sunday World source.

He started off by offering properties to hookers and pimps through the website Escort Ireland, run by convicted pimp Peter McCormick. 

Soon he was running three knocking shops in the city himself, with Silva and a number of other women. When they had too many prostitutes, he sent them out to work for other operations and charged €200 per girl, said sources.

Detective Garda Vincent Brick said at one court hearing that Lyons had been the target of a lengthy Garda surveillance operation.

In Limerick Circuit Court this week, Lyons admitted that he kept or managed brothels in three Limerick city locations, between August 13, 2010, and June 15, 2011.

He is due for sentence along with Zelandia in December, but is currently in custody.

Lyons left his job with a top engineering firm shortly after Gardai smashed his vice ring. He set up another company, TL Traffic, using his old family address in Malahide, according to his LinkedIn profile.

According to that profile, which is still online, he worked in South Africa for 10 years before moving back to Dublin, where he was employed by the same firm for 19 years. There is no mention of his double-life as a sex-trade supremo.

As a senior transport consultant, he had offered advice to the Government on major infrastructure projects, including the shelved Metro West scheme,

Earlier this year, Lyons also pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to allowing an apartment at Burnell Court, Malahide Road, Dublin, to be used as a brothel in 2011.

The court heard Gardai set up surveillance there after residents complained about men coming and going.

He told Gardai he had rented the apartment so he could live there with his Brazilian girlfriend, who was involved in the escort industry, but whom he had met socially.

When they split up, he advertised the property for €700 per week on an Irish escort website to help pay mortgages on three properties and to support his wife and children.

Lyons also told Gardai he had been financially helping his then girlfriend so she could leave the escort industry. 

Gardai got a search warrant and they saw an African woman and Eastern European woman enter the apartment. 

Lyons arrived later that day and answered the door to the search team.

He made full admissions during interview and said he got about €3,000 a month take-home pay and some rental income on other properties, including one in Lanzarote.

A Garda witness agreed with Lyons’s defence counsel that he had co-operated fully and had not trafficked the women or acted as a pimp.

The judge commented that there seemed to be a contradiction between Lyons trying to help his girlfriend out of prostitution and facilitating other women in the trade.

“It’s not a business that one sees as a career opportunity,” Judge Ring said.

Judge Ring accepted that Lyons comes from a respectable background, but noted that this was not a victimless crime. She said he had put his family’s future at risk because they are dependant on him.

Mairia Cahill

Gerry Adams with Joe Cahill

Martin Morris

Martin Morris – the former IRA man at the centre of the Mairia Cahill rape allegations – is also suspected of raping two other female members of the Cahill family, the Sunday World can reveal.

It is understood Morris managed to escape a police probe into the matter because the women, now in their late twenties and early thirties, declined to report the matter to authorities.

However, the Sunday World has been told the Gerry Adams and other senior members of the IRA and Sinn Fein were informed of the allegations at the same time as Mairia Cahill first pointed the finger at Morris more than 15 years ago.
It is understood all three women are grandnieces of the now deceased former IRA chief of staff Joe Cahill. Cahill was fully aware of the allegations before he died.
He did, however, tell one of the women: “If I had known, I would have told you to go to the RUC.”

Mairia and the other two women were all teenagers when they first made rape allegations against convicted IRA prisoner Morris in the late 1990s.
At the time, Morris held a senior post in the west Belfast office of the Community Restorative Justice (CRJ) organisation.
Following his release from prison, Marty Morris, as he was known, took on a new role as a member of the IRA’s so-called ‘Civil Administration Team’ in west Belfast.
He was responsible for dishing out IRA-style justice to people deemed guilty of anti-social behaviour.
Morris was to the fore in a number of highly-publicised ‘punishment attacks’ in the Ballymurphy and Turf Lodge areas of west Belfast.

In fact, so savage was the violence Morris dished out to suspected offenders, he earned himself the nickname ‘Blood-on-the-Boots’.
He remained in charge of a punishment squad right up until he was offered a paid position with the Community Restorative Justice organisation, a Government-funded group, strongly supported by Sinn Fein, prior to the party accepting the police as the primary service of law and order.
When rape allegations were first made against him, Morris was held under IRA house arrest at a number of locations in west Belfast, before being moved to a house in Ardoyne and then on to another in Glengormley.

The IRA’s decision to move quickly against Morris was an effort to placate members of the Cahill family, who were steeped in the republican tradition. It also served to limit any damage to Sinn Fein’s reputation in west Belfast.
Morris’s IRA comrades Padraic Wilson and Seamus Finucane were tasked with conducting inquiries into the allegations of rape from the three female members of the Cahill family.

However, the Sunday World can today confirm that while Morris was still under so-called ‘house arrest’ a CRJ wages cheque was delivered to him.
At the time, the Sunday World telephoned the CRJ office to inquire if they knew the whereabouts of its missing member. A spokesman told us: “He isn’t here and he is not expected back.”
The same spokesman later told us it was wrong that he had been employed there in the first place.
Prior to the devolution of justice and policing to the devolved Government at Stormont, Martin Morris’s name was mentioned in the highest echelons of power in Belfast, Dublin and London.

Senior members of the SDLP lobbied senior officials in both the British and Irish Governments to quiz the party about Morris’s whereabouts, who was by then hiding out in Donegal, prior to moving to England.

Four years ago, one of the Cahill women at the centre of the sex abuse allegations against Morris spoke to the Sunday World. She specifically asked us not to use her first name in order to protect the feelings of an elderly aunt.

Ms Cahill said she was still a teenager when Morris – who was nearly 40 years of age at the time – first attacked her.
The woman said she used to visit Morris’s house and sit up late drinking with him, while his wife slept upstairs.
It was in the front room of Morris’s house that she was attacked for the first time. She maintained that after that she was repeatedly raped by him, but was too afraid to speak out.

Once she plucked up the courage to speak out she was driven by IRA men Wilson and Finucane to an address in west Belfast, where she confronted Morris. 
The two IRA men ordered her and another family member to attend a meeting where they were told it would be up to the Cahill family to sort it out.
And she also told us she met with Gerry Adams on a number of occasions to discuss the matter, but all of these meetings proved fruitless.
BBC’s Spotlight programme this week featured Joe Cahill’s grandniece Mairia, who accused Morris of repeatedly raping her. And she also accused Adams of being part of a republican plan to brush the matter under the carpet.

Although charges were brought against Morris, they were eventually dropped. And charges against Padraic Wilson and Seamus Finucane of forcing Mairia to attend a meeting organised by the IRA were also dropped.

IT is the worst nightmare for any woman who decides to give an internet dating website a try.

This ad shows a cheerful and harmless-looking chubby 39-year-old who claims to be a “genuinely good person” and is not just looking for a “one night stand”.
However, looks can be deceiving.

This week, twisted fantasist Mark Mulligan was convicted of child pornography offences after he said he would “love to rape” a three-year-old boy online.
Beneath Mulligan’s mild-mannered exterior, the sicko from Donaghmede in north Dublin harboured a series of perverted fantasies involving sexually abusing innocent children and women.

On Thursday, the Central Criminal Court heard how Mulligan made references to the children of RTE “celebrities” and to kidnapping and raping boys and girls.
During what his own defence barrister described as a “disgusting fantasy conversation”, he said he would “love to rape” the three-year-old son of a woman he knew, because she “pissed” him off.

The evidence was a world away from the mild-mannered image Mulligan has attempted to portray on a popular dating website.
On it he writes: “I’m easy-going, enjoy walking, photography. I go to the cinema now and then, enjoy when I can go to theatre, comedy gigs, watching few things on TV. I’ve taken up walking again as I want to lose a few pounds.

“If you want to know more feel free message me, I’m looking for a date and maybe possibly more depending on where the first date is going so no one night stand or anything.”

However, in court this week Mulligan’s true nature as a sick and twisted pervert was exposed.
The court heard how, in text conversations over Skype with an unknown person, Mulligan said he would “love to rape” the three-year-old son of a woman he knew, because she “pissed” him off.  He then sent a non-explicit photograph of the boy to the other person. This other man, using the online identity rodub82, said: “Let’s snatch him.”

The accused replied: “Mmmm make him watch us kill his mum and dad, and then kill him.”
Garnet Orange SC, defending, told the jury that the online exchanges were between two people who were concealing their identities and were disturbing but were in the context of a private conversation. He said that nothing further was done.

After a one-day trial, a jury of 10 men and two women took 44 minutes to return a unanimous verdict of guilty.
Mulligan of Railway Road, Clongriffin, Dublin had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the production of child pornography at his home on dates between March 1 and March 17, 2013.

In one online text exchange, on the morning of St Patrick’s Day, Mulligan told rodub82: “Lots of horny kids around today in parade.”
He later wrote that he would “love to have a cottage in the middle of nowhere and take kids there and rape and torture them… and shit on their graves”. Rodub82 said they could behave “like a couple of Nazi prison guards”.
Mulligan added: “Love to pick someone up late at night boy girl man woman and rape the bastard. Every time I heard someone got raped it’s a turn on – even more when they are killed?”

He also said he’d like to kidnap and rape a pregnant woman and “get the kid out”. 
Mulligan asked rodub82 which Irish celebrity he would rape and rodub82 named the actress Saoirse Ronan, while Mulligan suggested “any of the reporters on RTE”. The other user replied “prefer their kids” and Mulligan agreed and said it would give them something to 
remember. 

Mulligan told gardaí that the conversations were all just “sick fantasies” and he never intended to act on them. 
He said: “I was only saying it, I was never going to meet anybody. We were discussing fantasy rape, as far as I was concerned nothing would be done about it. It was fantasy talk only.

“I get obsessed talking about rape and torture, I know I need help, I wish I didn’t have these thoughts.”
He said that while on the website gayireland.com he contacted a user with the word perv in their internet name and during their Skype conversation he said he “stupidly” said he was interested in raping young people. 
Mulligan said he isn’t sexually attracted to children.

“I was lonely, curious, I felt like I was an undercover reporter, trying to get information. I didn’t have any real friends, I distanced myself from reality. I just wanted to talk to people,” he said.

Garnet Orange SC, in his closing speech for the defence, told the jury that what was said was an exchange by way of electronic messaging between two people hiding behind assumed identities. He said it was a private conversation that was not intended for onward use.

He told them the jury that they must determine whether words used in the skype conversation amount to child pornography.
He submitted that the two men were “egging each other on” and “raising the stakes” during the conversation. “These two men were engaged in obscene fantasy,” he said.

Mr Orange said that not once during Mulligan’s interviews did gardaí say “child porn”. He submitted that the prosecution had sought to “shoehorn” the case into this charge.

“Ultimately this is not pornography. This is a gross fantasy by someone who should know better,” he said.

Judge Patricia Ryan remanded Mulligan in custody for sentencing in November and thanked jury members for their service.

Nicola talks to David about explicit messages

Full of fake sincerity and mock concern, online predators target young teens after first winning their trust by setting themselves up as father figures.

As part of an undercover investigation, the Sunday World confronted four of these men over the space of a two-week period last month.

They all answered an advert on the popular Craigslist classified ad website and set about slowly – but systematically – winning the trust of an apparently vulnerable 15-year-old girl.

Despite being told repeatedly that the teen was two years below the age of consent, they all continued to send sexualised messages before finally arranging to meet her for a ‘coffee’ in Dublin city centre.

Like most online predators, Andre denied he was attracted to underage girls and claimed he had no plans to “do anything” when confronted by the Sunday World.

As soon as he spotted our team approaching, Andre quickly threw his mobile phone into the River Liffey – presumably fearing he was about to be arrested.

The 29-year-old made no effort to deny that he had been planning to meet the girl, instantly confessing to doing something “stupid”.

In a bizarre speech – elements of which were repeated by each of the men confronted by this newspaper – Andre even tried to claim he was trying to protect the young girl.

He said:

“I was going to have a coffee and a chat with her about what she is doing. I’m not the normal type of person you’d write about. I’ve never done anything like this before.

“I have a sister that age and ultimately, I was just coming to [warn the ‘girl’]. Girls like that end up in the mountains… it’s all wrong. I just wanted to have a chat to her, about what she was doing.”

Despite Andre’s insistence that he was nothing more than an angel of mercy, his text and email records tell a different story.

After being told the girl was just 15 years old, he instantly emailed back saying: “A little young.”

But instead of cutting all contact, like many of the other men, shortly after he sent another message saying: “Do u have any pics?”

Just two days after being told the girl was under the age of consent, Andre sent her a full-length naked picture of himself.

He told our team: “I didn’t realise how old she was at that stage. And I said it a couple of times about her age. Like I said, I was coming to meet that girl to have a chat to her – nothing more. I had no intentions.

“I even said it to her in the email, ‘look, we’re only having coffee’. I haven’t done anything – I wasn’t going to do anything.”

But despite all his protestations, chillingly Andre finally admitted he was considering having sexual contact with the young girl.

“She didn’t look as young as she said in the picture. Look, it’s temptation, but I never would’ve went through with it.”

John – who is in his mid-40s – also kept it clean during his email contact with the young girl. However, as soon as he managed to get his hands on her phone number, he stepped it up a notch.

At all times, he was told he was talking to a 15-year-old who was still in school, lived with her mother and had no friends. 

But John still told her that he was “horny” and said he couldn’t wait to teach her anything that she liked. 

Andre speaks to our reporters

“Really excited bout meetin u, cant wait till we break the ice n I become ur teacher/lover, will do everything with u xx”

But when our team confronted him outside a cafe near Connolly Station, the west Dublin man was not feeling so open about his desires.

When asked if he believed he was doing something wrong, he said: “Well, obviously. Yeah.”

But he bizarrely tried to claim he did not believe the girl he was meeting was 15 years old – despite the fact that he was repeatedly told by text and email that this was the case.

“I didn’t really believe it, that it was true, as such. I didn’t know, you know that kind of way. Obviously, you don’t f**kin’ know.”

When asked about the highly sexualised messages he sent to the young girl, John said: “That was [me] going with it. I didn’t actually know, that was the perception.”

Amazingly, he tried to claim he was motivated by boredom rather than sexual attraction to children.

“It’s probably hanging around at home bored. Just have a f**king coffee, f**king blah blah – you know that kinda way. That would have been it. Yeah, that was the thing. I was never 100 per cent that it was true. Boredom – it was something different.”

When quizzed if he believed he would have had sex with the girl, he said: “I don’t really think so.” 

Roly-poly perv David was the most cautious of all the men we dealt with in the course of our investigation.

He had twice cancelled an arranged meeting and was also the only one who insisted on talking to our ‘teen’ at regular intervals over the weeks in which we communicated.

However, late at night, David was less guarded and at one point sent a text saying: “Don’t suppose you have a naughty pic you can send me... like with some clothes missing???”.

He had asked her age repeatedly and at one point asked whether she cared that he was 35.

At one point when he cancelled a meeting, he first claimed it was because of work commitments, then admitted he was married and then took on a fatherly role, telling our girl to be careful about meeting anyone from the internet.

But then, unprovoked, he got back in touch and repeatedly tried to arrange meetings around his work schedule, while our ‘teen’ told him she had to work around school.

At one point during a phone conversation, he begged to meet up. 

“I’m getting in a bit of trouble at school. I can’t miss any more days,” our girl told him. 

He replied: “Bad, bad girl.”

During another conversation, he quizzed our teen about “how far” she had gone with boys. When she said she had never had sex with anyone, he told her that wouldn’t be a problem.

When we eventually did meet David, he had plenty of excuses ready. “

“I was meeting her to tell her she shouldn’t be doing it. She is just risking herself. I can explain. She said on the phone she was 15 and I said, ‘no, it’s not happening’. I was meeting her to say how dangerous it was.”

He told us that having asked for intimate pictures of the girl, his conscience had got at him. 

“I was caught up in the moment. I decided it was too much for a whole range of reasons. I never met young girls before. It all came on me like that, a snap of the finger. But today was to say to her, ‘don’t do it and stop, don’t meet people’.”

Like Andre, Rob was also fond of sending naked pictures of himself to the underage girl. Within 20 minutes of getting the girl’s phone number, he had sent a picture of his erect penis to our phone and asked for a topless picture of her in return.

He also told her that he was as “hard as a rock” with the thought of meeting up. 

When challenged by our team outside a city-centre cafe, Rob admitted that he knew he had crossed the line.

He said: “I was [thinking about what I was doing] as I was standing there, getting on the bus. It’s my own doing – I would be the first one to admit it.” 

However, he denied he planned to engage in any sexual activity, saying he was just planning to “hang around town, that was it”.

Rob was unable to come up with any real defence of his actions, saying he was just trying to “pass the time”.

Like all the predatory men, he claimed it was his first time meeting a young girl, saying: “I never had any luck [on the internet], to be honest. This would have been the first one. I’ve no criminal record, I’ve kept my nose clean, it was more curiosity.”

He added: “I’m sort of glad [I was caught], in a weird sort of a way, it wasn’t sitting right. It’s put to bed now.”

NOW READ: "Don't be shy, come say hello to an older man."

Nicola Tallant confronts online pervert John

Our advert is only online a few minutes when a series of disturbing emails arrive in quick succession.

We have created a profile of a 15-year-old schoolgirl who has recently moved to Dublin from her home in Gorey, Co. Wexford. She is lonely in her new home, has no friends, hates school and wants to meet some guys. 

She is new to Craigslist, the popular classified site where she has placed a short advert, but is open from the start about her age.

More than 40 per cent of children between the ages of nine and 16 own a smartphone, as do 60 per cent of all teenagers in Ireland, and they are online every day.

More have tablets, iPads and other access to the web, opening up their lives to a never-ending source of possibilities and information.

But we set out to find out how dangerous it can be to place an internet-enabled device into the hands of a teenager, where less is more and a celebrity-driven culture has hyper-sexualised a generation. 

The results are shocking and should serve as a warning to both teenagers and their parents about what can await them at the end of a ‘send’ button.

In fact, our probe led us right into the dark heart of a shocking online sub-culture where adult men lie in wait to exploit vulnerable teenagers taking their first tentative steps as they try to explore their underdeveloped sexuality.

All the correspondence starts the same way, with men – using online identities – wanting further information about our girl.

She tells them she is living with her mother in Drumcondra on Dublin’s northside, and that she is in fourth year at secondary school. She is just 15, she tells them. A corresponding Facebook page shows pictures of our fake teen looking fresh-faced and pouting for selfies.

With literally hundreds of enquiries, a portion immediately back off when hearing of her age. Some warn her that she is too young and conversing with her in any sexual nature would be illegal.

But others, and plenty of them, are undeterred and continue with X-rated, sexually explicit conversations. Many send pictures of their erect penises and urge her to return the favour and send them naked pictures of herself. She declines.

One writes:

“Well don’t be shy, come say hello to an older gentleman more than willing to have some real good fun and will gladly teach and show you all about what you need to know and afraid to ask, so get in touch.”

Others are way more graphic: “I’d like to pull u up on to my rock hard **** and get ur ***** wrapped around it and I bang **** out of u.”

Many immediately want to move her on to Snapchat and Kik – phone apps where conversations are free and images are supposed to disappear after a period of time.

Again she declines, saying that she would prefer to email or text. Many become way more graphic 

One individual, who we have identified as a prominent businessman, says he wants to take on a “Master” role and teach her how to be a submissive.

He tells her to take naked pictures of her breasts and bottom and send them to him. She declines, saying her mother is in the house, but he tells her to go to the bathroom and do it there: “Masters orders.”

Others are less blatant about their intentions. They befriend our ‘teen’ and urge her to tell them about any of the other guys who have contacted her. She tells them her concerns that many don’t want to chat, just meet up.

“Well then don’t meet them if they don’t sound very nice. I’m guessing if they don’t wanna chat, means they are looking for sex – u should be careful meeting total strangers that just want to play around – there’s plenty of weirdos online,” one says, before later sending far more graphic requests.

One moves from normal conversation to sending full-frontal naked pictures of himself, then texts: “Ya up for meeting up, I could show you some more ??”

The same man then says: “You look really young. I really wanna meet you but I think I can get in trouble for that. That’s the only reason I wanna go somewhere quiet, this has to be discreet.”

Another asks her: “Would your mates not think it’s weird that you’re hanging out with an older guy? :) Would you tell anyone?”
John, who does go on to meet our undercover team, texts on an almost hourly basis. He tells her: “Wish you were here now angel, love to be pleasuring u xx” and later texts: “Will u wear ur school uniform for me sometime? Xx.”

The following day he tells her he wants her to come to his house to meet: “When u come here it’ll be nice on rug in front of fire angel, teachin u, u can do anything u like xx.” Later he asks her: “Hey hows my fav schoolgirl tonite? Xx.”

Another also relishes her young age: “Don’t make me get bossy like your Daddy. Ha ha.”

NOW READ:  We track down the men seeking underage girls online

Ashley St Mart

A young recruit has told how he was forced to quit the Irish army after being racially abused, bullied and even threatened with rape.

Ashley St Mart – whose father is from Mauritius – has made a series of claims that will rock the Defence Forces.  

He told how he was branded a “f**king foreigner” and compared to Michael Jackson by senior soldiers during a wave of racist abuse.  In a separate incident, he says he and fellow recruits were branded the “faggot platoon”.

The 19 year old from Clonsilla, Dublin, lasted just three months as a recruit before quitting over the bullying and receiving his discharge papers last Thursday.

He joined the army on August 27 of this year and within a matter of days the colour of his skin was highlighted by one of his superiors. 

He said he was continuously picked on by certain officers. 

The Sunday World has learned that one soldier is now facing court martial proceedings as a result of some of the alleged remarks.

Ashley's father, Chris, is originally from Mauritius but has been living in Ireland for almost 30 years. His mother, Modey, is from Dublin. 

The first incident occurred on September 2 when another corporal had pointed out that Ashley was an accomplished kickboxer who had won world championships representing Ireland. 

Ashley said the man who is now facing court martial turned around and said: “You’re still a f**king foreigner.”

Two days later, the same soldier brought up the colour of Ashley's skin. “When he entered the room he asked me why is my skin so brown. He asked me where I was from.

I told him I was half Mauritian. He said that’s where Michaela McAreavey died and that he knew one of her relatives. He had a look in his eyes as if to say it was my fault.”

Ashley said he detailed the incidents in a note book but did not complain as he felt his life would be made hell. 

“I let it go because I was only in the second week of training and I knew I would probably create problems for myself. The officers would have dealt with it in the appropriate manner but it is like school, the principal isn’t going to be around all the time. 

“I knew even if I said something and it was dealt with it would come back on me. They can really mess with your life and put you through a lot of pain. I 
didn’t say anything but I did record it.”

A third incident happened a few days later when Ashley was doing an about-turn as part of a foot drill. The man said: “You’re doing it like Michael Jackson, aren’t you?”

Around this time, Ashley’s notebook where he recorded the references to his skin colour went missing. He suspects one of his tormentors saw what was in the notebook, as references to his colour stopped shortly after. 

However, over the following weeks he said his life was made hell in the training. Another soldier – who is not facing any charges – approached Ashley after hearing he did kickboxing. “He was saying to me, ‘You think you’re a hard man don’t you. You’re a f**king weasel’. Then he said, ‘When I get you up the mountains I’m going to rape you’.

He said he’d choke me out till I stopped breathing.”

He said he felt he couldn’t say anything because of the way the army conditioned recruits. 

“I am able to be assertive and speak my mind, but because of the military hierarchy you feel you can’t. You become so conditioned. They reprogram you to think their way.

It’s so totalitarian. You’re being controlled when to talk, what to say, what to think, when to go to bed, when to eat, when to shower. You have no control over your life.”

In a similar incident, a fellow recruit of Ashley’s was forced to put another soldier’s dirty socks in his mouth. 

“We were told we were the faggot platoon. They said it’s much worse in Dublin and we’re all gay.”

Several more incidents occurred over the following weeks and Ashley felt corporals were trying to turn other recruits against him. 

One corporal kept insisting Ashley had ADHD and he admitted at one point he almost believed it was true because it was being said so much. 

His room was trashed and he was made carry out tasks to belittle him in front of other recruits.

Despite the fact Ashley was in the top-six during shooting drills, one corporal had convinced other recruits that he was so bad he’d shoot their heads off. 

The final straw occurred when Ashley was 20 seconds late. While two other recruits were later than he was, Ashley was singled out by the corporal who made the racial comments to him. 

“He saw me and said, ‘This is the pri*k here. This is the clown who’s going to make all your lives hell. We’re going to punish you for this pri*k. It’s going to be a long six months’. 

“He said because I was a selfish pri*k we’re going to run around the barracks for circuits. During the circuits I looked in his eyes and he said what the f**k are you doing looking at my eyes. So he told everyone we’re going to do another two circuits because I was a selfish pr**k and a c**t and idiot.”

Ashley added: “I’d never been so mentally tired in my life. I just didn’t want to go on. It was that bad.”

At that point, Ashley decided enough was enough and asked to be discharged. He had to speak to his platoon commander about the reason he was leaving. He told him about the racial comments and the rape threats.

“His eyes bulged and he was really annoyed. He didn’t know that stuff was happening.”

His mother said: “To me, what happened to him was torture. I actually cried for nights over what happened. It still affects me to think somebody could treat him like that.

These people are uneducated idiots to think they can talk to people like that.” 

An army spokesman said: “The Defence Forces are aware of complaints made by a former recruit and in this case disciplinary proceedings are ongoing under military law.

Any allegations of inappropriate behaviour are investigated thoroughly by the Defence Forces.”

Martin 'the General' Cahill

Mairia Cahill.jpg

A former IRA member suspected of involvement in the murder of ‘the General’ Martin Cahill is on a list of suspected republican paedophiles which has been handed over to gardai.

The man, who was also involved in a number of other high-profile IRA operations, is one of nine men on a list given to gardai by Fine Gael TD Regina Doherty. 

The list contains details of men who were moved to the Republic after IRA bosses became aware of sexual abuse allegations against them in the North. 

Ms Doherty made an official statement to gardai last Friday week detailing the nine cases where the IRA are said to have “facilitated” abusers in the organisation to move from the North to the Republic. 

She received the information from a source with detailed knowledge of the IRA and the alleged abuse cases.

The information passed on to gardai included names, dates and locations north and south of the border. 

The abuse is said to have occurred in locations across Northern Ireland including Belfast, Lurgan, and Bangor, while the alleged abusers were moved to Dublin, Louth and Donegal. 

The cases span from the 1980s to the 2000s. 

One of the men included on the list is believed to have been involved in the murder of notorious gangster Cahill, who was shot dead by the IRA in 1994. 

The man, who is originally from Fermanagh, is believed to have driven the hitman to the murder on a motorbike. 

He was involved in a number of other high-profile IRA operations which we cannot detail as it would identify him. 

It is alleged he raped a 14-year-old girl in the North and was subsequently moved to the south after the allegations were brought to the IRA. 

Meanwhile, the Sunday World has learnt a number of other well-known republican figures have been linked to sex attacks. 

One well-known figure is suspected of raping a woman in Dublin in the 1980s. The man had been cheating on his wife with the woman. She told gardai that he beat her severely before raping her.

The woman spoke to detectives in detail about the matter, but did not make a formal complaint as she feared the man would have her killed.

“She said he would have her shot if he knew she had spoken to gardai,” said a source. “He was never even brought in for questioning.”

The man was heavily involved in the anti-drugs marches in the capital in the 1980s. 

Another well-known Sinn Fein member is suspected of raping his partner’s daughter over a decade ago. The mother of the girl spoke to gardai, but once again did not press ahead with the matter. 

It is understood the suspected paedophile was given a punishment beating by IRA members who were made aware of the rapes.

A source said: “He was given a hiding, but that was the end of it. The girl’s mother wanted him charged, but because of the republican links she didn’t press ahead.” 

The controversy over IRA sex abuse was sparked by Belfast woman Mairia Cahill, who went public over abuse she suffered at the hands of a senior IRA figure when she was a teenager.  

Meanwhile, a major inquiry has found paramilitaries were involved in the sexual exploitation of children across Northern Ireland, 

The Marshall inquiry received “powerful and persuasive” evidence that paramilitaries sexually abused young people.

Kingpin: Gareth Quinn is believed to lead the mob

Killer: Thomas Hinchon

A VIOLENT crime gang has set up Ireland’s first industrial drugs factory after flying over two Chinese chemists to show them how to make ‘zimmos’ and steroids.