Gardaí: Dunne sentence ‘fair enough’

GARDAÍ yesterday said the 12-year sentence handed down to Jonathan Dunne for the attempted murder of Ian Kenny was “fair enough”.

The Kenny family expressed outrage on Wednesday after the sentence was given by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court.

Garda sources said they sympathised with the grief of the Kenny family, but that the 12-year sentence reflected the full circumstances of the case.

Dunne, aged 23, from Windmill Court, Crumlin, south Dublin, had pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Mr Kenny, aged 21, of Monasteraboice Road, Crumlin, at Lakeland Road, Stillorgan, on July 4, 2007.

The court had heard that Dunne had shot Kenny in the head and shoulder with a sawn-off shotgun as a favour to drug dealers because he had lost drugs worth IR£50,000 when he was 16.

Kenny is in permanent care at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin, where he is fed through a tube and has no control over his bladder or bowels.

Mr Justice Carney said the attempted murder merited a sentence of 16 years, but because of the accused’s early guilty plea, his youth and his background in employment he sentenced him to 12 years’ imprisonment.

Ian Kenny’s mother, Kathleen afterwards branded the sentence a disgrace and said her son’s attacker would be out in six years.

Garda sources yesterday said the sentence was “fair enough” given the circumstances.

One source said Dunne was not aligned to any of the feuding drug gangs in Crumlin and Drimnagh and was “just a kid” when he lost the drugs, which indirectly belonged to one of the gang bosses.

“He was told ‘you owe us. If you don’t do A, B and C you and your family are going to get it.’ They put the squeeze on him.”