Mick Cunningham fell out with Gilligan

John Cunningham at his brother's funeral

THE veteran criminal who got a final send-off from gangland’s finest this week was responsible for organising the recent assassination attempt on ex-drug lord John Gilligan.

Convicted kidnapper Mick Cunningham – who died from a massive heart attack – was laid to rest at the Church of the Assumption in Ballyfermot, Dublin, on Wednesday.

Mick’s brother John, the right-hand man of international drug trafficker Christy Kinahan, led the mourners, which included his wife Helen, their children and grandchildren and a who’s who of faces from the criminal underworld.

Debt collector Martin ‘the Viper’ Foley, suspected drug lord Stephen ‘the Grandfather’ Kearney, con artist Fran ‘the Lamb’ Cunningham, fraudster Sean ‘the Fixer’ Fitzgerald, cigarette smuggler Noel ‘Kingsize’ Duggan and drug dealer Troy Jordan all paid their respects.

At the service, Mick was remembered as a kind and generous family man who volunteered his time and often helped those in trouble. However, those who got on the wrong side of Cunningham could find out that time doesn’t always heal a grudge.

The Sunday World can reveal how Cunningham had vowed to have Gilligan murdered as a result of a bitter falling out stretching back nearly three decades.
Botched

It was Cunningham who organised and paid for the gun attack on Gilligan at his brother Thomas’s house last March, following the thug’s release from prison.

Mick had vowed to finish off the pint-sized thug if he ever set foot in Ireland again as payback for a nasty stunt Gilligan pulled on the Cunninghams when the brothers were locked up for the Guinness kidnap back in 1986.

Gilligan had initially agreed to blast the pair out of Mountjoy jail after they received 14 and 17 years for the botched job, which saw Mrs Guinness, the wife of a bank chairman, released unharmed after a massive manhunt.

However, Gilligan bottled it on the plan to use dynamite to blow up the jail wall, but instead promised the brothers, Mick and John, that he would look after their families.

It is understood that Gilligan firstly gave the Cunningham wives supplies to help them feed their children, but then decided he wanted payment and sent a thug up to their homes to trash them.

Under his orders, his enforcers barged into their homes and smashed the furniture, windows, doors, televisions and anything else that could be broken.

After their release from prison Mick remained in Ireland, while John travelled to Amsterdam, where he hooked up with Christy Kinahan and built up what is now an international drug dealing cartel based in Spain.

However, Gilligan was still in their sights and following the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, Mick agreed to travel with the drug boss to Amsterdam to help him transport money.

It is understood that Mick had convinced Gilligan (below) that he could help him get the money out of the country and away from the CAB – but had instead planned to kill him in Holland.

His plan was foiled when Gilligan was arrested with the money and sent to Belmarsh jail, before later being extradited back to Ireland.
He was tried for the murder of Guerin, but jailed for drug dealing offences by the Special Criminal Court.

Throughout Gilligan’s time in prison, sources say that Mick regularly remarked that he would get him one day.

John Cunningham regularly offered his beloved elder brother a part of the action on the Costa, but Mick refused, as he was determined to make up the time he lost with his family.

“In the early days Mick was always after the big one, John too. They were hoping to pocket a million each out of the Jennifer Guinness kidnap, but instead they landed very, very long sentences in prison. 

“Mick served 14 years and he spent the rest of his days trying to make up for all the time he lost with his kids,” a source said.

But Mick didn’t wash his hands with crime totally – far from it. 

While he had no dealings in drugs, he had been working with Martin ‘the Viper’ Foley in recent years as a partner in his debt collecting business. He was also believed to have had a hand in smuggling cigarettes

Cunningham found that he was suited to debt collection. His reputation as the Jennifer Guinness kidnapper and as a hardened criminal stood to him.

Foley was happy to have his old buddy on board as it kept him on the right side of John Cunningham, who he had fallen out with over a missing consignment of money that led to the murder of Dundalk haulier Kieran Smyth.

Smyth’s body was discovered in a ditch in Ashbourne after sources said he and Foley had agreed to transport money for John Cunningham to Amsterdam. The money never made it and both were blamed for pocketing it.

The Sunday World understands that Mick Cunningham convinced his brother that Foley hadn’t anything to do with the missing money.
Despite his brother’s involvement in the drugs trade, Mick Cunningham hated dealers and only last year was suspected of being behind an incident with a heroin pusher who was supplying youngsters in Ballyfermot.

The man, who is a well-known dealer, was believed to have been bundled into a car and driven up the mountains where he was threatened that he would be kneecapped.
Ironically, the same man was among the mourners at the funeral.

“There is no doubting that Mick Cunningham was a very dangerous man and he wouldn’t think twice about killing someone he perceived as an enemy,” said a source. 

“But he was also well liked,” a source said. “His biggest regret in life was the kidnap – or rather getting caught for it. He never forgave himself for being so stupid and for having to spend so much time away from his family.

“After he got out he was offered time and again a role with the Kinahan cartel but he would  never even discuss it. He wouldn’t risk being put away again.”
Cunningham was at home when he took ill in the early hours of Monday morning and was rushed to James Hospital where he was pronounced dead from a massive heart attack.

The burnt-out shell of the getaway car used by the killers

Detective Garda Adrian Donohue

This is the highly-skilled torch job done on the getaway car that bought Garda Adrian Donohoe’s killers their freedom.

Our photos show the extent the gang went to hide any traces of their identity after a botched robbery in Lordship, Dundalk, two years ago this week.

No forensics could be garnered from the Volkswagen Passat that transported five raiders, including one sniper, back to the safety of south Armagh, where officers believe other gang members were waiting to burn it to a crisp.

All that remained amid the mangled steel and interior was the chassis number that proved it had been stolen in a creeper burglary in Clogherhead, Co. Louth, some days previously.

Intelligence has suggested that the two chief suspects, childhood friends from Crossmaglen, stole the car and parked it up in the home of another gang member located near the Lordship Credit Union where the shooting occurred.

The grisly remains of the getaway car were discovered near Keady, where it is believed IRA-trained experts made sure that not as much as a speck of dust remained that could be linked to any of those present when father-of-two Adrian was murdered.

It is understood that the destruction of vehicles north of the border was one of the group’s modus operandi and had been used on previous raids.

The torching of the car is just one of many hurdles the cross-border investigation is facing as it focuses on the lawless IRA stronghold of south Armagh.

Incredibly, despite the enormous difficulties investigating the gang, three of whom have left the jurisdiction, the Sunday World understands that for the past year just TWO specialised detectives have been left on the case.

The scene after Adrian Donohue's murder in Co Louth

In January 2013, when the popular dad of two young children was brutally gunned down in the line of duty, then Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan vowed that no expense would be spared in catching the killers.

He said:

“Resources will not be an issue. We have many people working on this investigation, with the national units assisting the local Gardai. We have the Special Detective Unit [SDU], the National Bureau for Criminal Investigation [NBCI] and all of the specialist units.”

Initially, up to 1,000 Gardai were assigned to the case and the full resources of the specialised National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and other units were deployed.

The key gang of five and a further 22 periphery members including key associates, car dismantlers, false registration experts and others, were quickly identified.

Similar robberies that had taken place in the surrounding area and in other Credit Unions were expertly profiled and a total of eight from late 2010 in the Republic and five in the Newry area were linked to the gang.

Hundreds of statements were taken, thousands of lines of inquiry established and a painstaking trawl through 400,000 hours of CCTV and mobile phone records was conducted.

Last year it was reported that Gardai were on the brink of making arrests, but those close to the investigation said differently, revealing that they had little concrete evidence.

In the past 12 months, just two officers from the NBCI remain on the case relying on the help of local officers at Dundalk – one of the busiest stations in the county and where Garda Donohoe and his wife Caroline both served.

On Friday, a candlelit vigil will take place when Adrian’s friends and family will walk from where he was murdered to the local community centre.

The Lordship Credit Union is located down the road from the Donohoe family home and just across the road from where his two young children attend school.

Sources close to the investigation say that it will be up to new Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan to make a decision on whether or not to give the investigation an injection of the manpower it so badly needs or whether to allow it become the only capital murder in the history of the State to remain unsolved.

As it stands, the suspected shooter is based in Boston after first relocating to New York. He regularly posts updates on his Facebook page.

He has told officers that he was in the company of three of the other suspects in the vicinity of Lordship Credit Union on the evening of the murder.

He says he then accompanied one of his pals north of the border, where his friend signed on at a PSNI station before visiting a pal and then going to his girlfriend’s home.

His number two, who officers say could also be the shooter, told detectives that he remained at home after signing on at the police station and was joined by his girlfriend.

Two brothers who are also now in the U.S. were also given alibis for their movements on the night.

Gardai believe that a complex examination of mobile phone traffic between the gang that night could be key to solving the case. It is understood that a timeline of mobile phone traffic has been detailed.

Anyone with information regarding the murder of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe should contact Dundalk Garda Station on 042 9388400 or the Garda Confidential Line on 1800666111.

Our reporter Jim (right) confronts paedo Carvin

A paedophile who sexually abused a seven-year-old girl is living in a city centre B&B surrounded by children.

Sex beast John Carvin, who escaped a jail sentence last year for assaulting his brother’s stepdaughter, is being put up by social welfare in Dublin’s city centre.

The Sunday World tracked down the 46-year-old pervert this week and asked if he wanted to apologise to his devastated victim Stephanie Phoenix.

But the brute, who was walking hand in hand with his wife down a packed city centre street, did not open his mouth and rushed into a nearby shopping centre.

Carvin’s case caused uproar last June when he was given a three-year jail sentence suspended in full for three years.

Judge Patrick McCartan said the abuse was at the lower end of the scale and that Carvin had eventually admitted the attack after first pleading not guilty

There were emotional scenes in court when one of the victim’s family fled the courtroom in tears after the non-custodial sentence was handed down.

At an earlier hearing the judge asked the victim, who was then aged 20, to meet her attacker as part of the Restorative Justice Programme before he passed sentence.

He suggested the programme because “this is a close family that is badly fractured by what has occurred” and he hoped “some reparation of the family relationship might be achieved”.

He added: “If there is a prospect that this can be put right then this might well be an option that is worth exploring.”

But the victim declined to meet Carvin. She also waived her right to anonymity so he could be publicly named.

Carvin’s trial heard how he was sleeping in a room next to Stephanie on the night of the abuse. He entered her room and climbed into the seven-year-old’s bed and began kissing and rubbing her.

John Carvin 

He left, but returned shortly afterwards and made her carry out a sexual act on him. He then told her “to get on top”, but she refused and he fell asleep. He was later discovered in the bed by another family member who ordered him out.

Carvin was convicted in April last year of sexual assault, but was acquitted of abusing her on two other occasions between October 2000 and February 2001.

Judge McCartan said Carvin had forced the victim to go through a trial by refusing to admit his guilt.

He noted the defendant had “challenged very strongly” the victim’s version of events, effectively calling her a liar.

In a victim impact statement the woman, who first told police about the abuse in 2010, said she suffered stress and anxiety as the trial approached. She had nightmares about the abuse and the trial, including dreaming that the judge would shout at her and tell her she was lying.

Carvin’s barrister Caroline Biggs told the court her client had married in 2010 and had the support of his wife.

He also had a good work record. She said the offence seemed to be a one-off and was at the lower end of the scale.Carvin was forced out of his home in Holywell Crescent, Swords, two months after the trial when locals discovered his identity. His walls were daubed with the word “paedophile.”

Disgusted locals held a protest outside the house opposite a playground.

One local father of four said: “People are mad he didn’t go to jail. He wasn’t properly punished. It’s a disgrace.”

The house was boarded up after being attacked and it was thought Carvin had moved to Balbriggan, close to the home of his victim.

Stephanie wrote on Facebook:

“Who does he think he is living five minutes up the road from me? Just goes to show he doesn’t have a care in the world.

“He should be locked up, not walking the streets. He is a convicted paedophile and shouldn’t be free on the streets. I don’t want him in Balbriggan.”

The victim revealed that the abuse destroyed her childhood and that she had never had a boyfriend.

“I thought I was going to get justice but there was none.”