Man jailed over threat to kill trial witness

A man who threatened to kill a key witness during the trial of the murderers of Limerick crime boss Kieran Keane was jailed for four and a half years today.

John Dundon, 22, from Mayorstone Court, Limerick was arrested in November 2003 during the middle of the high security trial at Cloverhill Courthouse in Dublin.

At the Circuit Criminal Court today, he pleaded guilty to the charge of telling Donna Treacy that he was going to kill or harm her husband, Owen Treacy.

Dundon had been attending the trial of the five men, which included his brother Desmond, charged with the murder and false imprisonment of Kieran Keane and his nephew Owen Treacy.

Keane and Treacy were abducted by a gang of five men in January 2003, and taken to a laneway in Drombana in Limerick. Keane was shot dead and Treacy was stabbed multiple times and left for dead after the gun jammed.

Superintendent Gerard Mahon of Henry Street Garda Station told the court that Keane’s murder occurred during a period when three people were killed and 25 people were held in Garda custody.

“It was part of a vicious, violent feud which was in progress in Limerick,” he said.

Superintendent Mahon said Treacy was the chief prosecution witness in the subsequent murder trial, which was moved from Limerick to Cloverhill Courthouse, amid tight security.

After 29 days of evidence and 15 hours of jury deliberation, all five men charged with the murder and false imprisonment of Keane, as well as the attempted murder and false imprisonment of Treacy, were found guilty and jailed for life.

The court heard that Dundon delivered his threat to Donna Treacy on November 13, 2003 while her husband was being cross examined.

He told her: “I swear on my baby’s life, when this is all over I’m going to kill Owen Treacy.”

Superintendent Mahon agreed with junior counsel Dominic McGinn, representing the DPP, that Mrs Treacy had been terrified by Dundon’s threat and had no doubt that he was capable of carrying it out.

The court heard that Dundon had previously been convicted of burglary, public order offences and driving without insurance. At the time of the threat, he was on bail after being charged for attempting to burn down a house.

Junior Counsel Brian McInerney, representing Dundon, said his client had been under considerable stress at the time of the offence because his brother Desmond Dundon was on trial for murder.

“In the course of his trial, he lost his head and said something monumentally stupid,” he said.

Judge Yvonne Murphy said it was a very serious offence to threaten the wife of a witness that he would be killed. She said the criminal justice system depended on witnesses giving evidence and that Mr Dundon’s actions were a threat to public justice.

She accepted that his guilty plea had spared Mr Treacy the ordeal of testifying in court but said that it had come very late in the day.

She imposed a sentence of four and a half years, backdated to November 13, 2003 to take account of the 14 months Dundon had already spent in custody.

Judge Murphy refused Dundon the leave to appeal the severity of the sentence.

Mr McGinn, representing the DPP, entered a nolle trosequi on the remaining charge against Dundon, that of intimidating a witness.