‘Cowardly’ killer may have been known to garda

Tributes for murdered Garda Tony Golden have flooded in as one former assistant Garda commissioner said his “cowardly” killer may well have been known to him.

The Mayo-born garda, who had been living in Blackrock near Dundalk with his wife and three children, was shot as he escorted Siobhan Phillips away from the house she shared with Adrian Crevan Mackin in the Co Louth village of Omeath on Sunday evening.

Mackin first shot his girlfriend and then Garda Golden before turning the weapon on himself.

Yesterday, retired assistant commissioner Martin Donnellan said it was likely Garda Golden would have been fully aware of Mackin’s background — including his arrest on suspicion of a being a member of a dissident republican group last January — when he attended the domestic violence call-out.

“[Garda Golden] was five or six years there in that area and he would have known the partner and the culprit,” Mr Donnellan said on RTÉ’s Today with Sean O’Rourke.

“He would not have gone to that house unless he thought he was safe to do so.”

Mr Donnellan also said he suspected Garda Golden knew Mr Mackin “very well” and that it would be unlikely that Mackin’s partner, Siobhan Phillips, would want to return to the house to fetch items from it if she had any suspicion that Mackin was in possession of a weapon.

Referring to dissident republicans, he said: “These terrorists, you’ll find, they don’t change too much. They would have developed a deep hatred for the guards over the years.

“He [Mackin] had that gun, he produced the gun, he shot the lady and even at that stage, I’d say the guard would have tried to reason with him.” Mr Donnellan added that “a cowardly man is the most dangerous of all”.

The brutal manner of Garda Golden’s death has sparked debate over how his killer was at liberty at the time, with the Garda Representative Association (GRA) stating that bail laws, manpower, and protocols for responding to domestic incidents will all have to be addressed in the wake of Garda Tony Golden’s death.

His murder is the second killing of an on-duty garda in the same district in three years, following Detective Adrian Donohoe’s death in an armed robbery.

Dermot O’Brien, GRA president, said the next few days are for grieving before lessons to be learned will be addressed with Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald.

The GRA, which represents 11,500 rank-and-file officers, paid tribute to Garda Golden’s “self-sacrifice and dedication” in responding to a domestic abuse call to a house where a known dissident republican had lived.

Mr O’Brien said: “The GRA feels the next few days are for grieving, and then we will be leaving the issues at the door of the minister.

“They have to start standing up and realising what the problems are in An Garda Síochána, manpower, resources, protocols — it’s not just going to be solved by technology and computerisation. But the next few days are for grieving.”