My uncle is innocent, says Dutchy’s nephew

THE nephew of gangland figure Patrick ‘Dutchy’ Holland yesterday said he believed his uncle’s arrest in an alleged kidnap plot in London was a mistake.

James Holland said he thought it was a case of his uncle being “in the wrong place, at the wrong time”.

He said he had never heard his uncle speak of being involved in kidnapping, or wanting to, or being violent towards other people.

Dutchy Holland, a convicted armed robber and drug trafficker, was one of five people arrested on Tuesday by a London police surveillance team.

The following day, all five were charged with conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent and other offences.

Holland, aged 68, was a member of the John Gilligan drug trafficking gang and only got out of prison in April 2006 after serving nine years of a 12-year sentence for trafficking cannabis.

During his original trial in the Special Criminal Court a garda witness said he was believed to be the man who shot journalist Veronica Guerin in June 1996.

No evidence was furnished in court and Holland was never charged in relation to the murder.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner yesterday, James Holland said he could not believe his uncle would get involved in kidnapping.

“One thing I’ve never known, or ever heard him speak of, or wanting to get involved in, is kidnapping.”

He said he saw his uncle regularly after he had got out of prison. “He was keeping to himself, he wasn’t mixing with anyone, not bothering anyone. He’d drop in and see me a couple of days a week.”