Jury finds Corkman guilty of possessing 220 live bullets

A JURY of 10 women and two men returned a guilty verdict on the fifth day of the trial of a man accused of having 220 live bullets in a lunchbox in his house three years ago.

Don Blaney, aged 51, of Cnoc Abhainn, Old Church Road, Passage West, Co Cork, pleaded not guilty to being in possession of 220 live rounds of assault rifle ammunition at his home on 18 February 2005. The jury took six hours to return their unanimous 11-1 verdict.

Judge Con Murphy remanded Blaney on bail to appear at Cork Circuit Criminal Court for sentencing on February 24, 2009.

A probation report is to be prepared.

Before the jury retired to consider their verdict, defence senior counsel, Tom Creed suggested to them: “You have heard evidence of the man. Nobody from the prosecution or the defence had a bad word to say about him. Is he the kind of person who would keep bullets in his attic?”

Marjorie Farrelly senior counsel for the prosecution, referred to evidence by the defendant’s daughter Siobhán Blaney in which she praised her father’s intelligence, generosity, honesty and work in the community tackling racism. Ms Farrelly told the jury that Blaney was not on trial on the question of whether or not he was a good father. She said this was not at issue in the case.

Asked during the trial about the ammunition, Blaney said he rejected with every fibre of his being having any knowledge of how they got there.

“I cannot speculate on who may have put them there, I am not prepared to go into a guessing game, I really do not know,” he said in court.

George Hegarty who described himself as a republican and a member of Sinn Féin, called to Blaney’s home on an almost daily basis for years. He testified: “I know Don definitely did not put them there.”

At the beginning of the case a neighbour of Blaney, John Corkery, said that his children found two partially burnt Northern Irish sterling bank notes in their garden and he telephoned the gardaí. When they called and interviewed him they asked if there had been any fires in the area recently and one of Mr Corkery’s daughters said: “Why don’t you tell them about Don’s chimney?”

Mr Corkery explained to the gardaí that Blayney’s chimney had gone on fire the previous night. After this gardaí obtained a warrant to search Blaney’s house.