Convicted gunman gets four-year sentence

A convicted gunman has been jailed for seven years by Judge Patricia Ryan for a nonfatal drive-by shooting at two of his neighbours in Ballymun in 2005.

Derek "Bottler" Devoy (aged 25), of Balbutcher Drive, Ballymun was recognised as the gunman when a scarf slipped from his face after he shot at two men from a car which then drove away at speed.

Devoy, who is currently serving a seven-year sentence for another firearm offence, was found guilty by a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury in November (2007) of possession of a shotgun with intent to endanger life at Cranogue Close on September 19, 2005.

Devoy had 26 previous convictions and was jailed for seven years in March 2006 by Judge Donagh McDonagh, along with a co-accused, David Mulvey (aged 24) of Berryfield Drive, Finglas, for possession of a loaded double-barrel sawn-off shot gun on April 6, 2006 at Market Green, Ballbriggan.

Defence counsel, Mr Peter Finlay SC (with Mr Paul Greene BL) told Judge Ryan that Devoy maintained he was not person in the car in Ballymun from which the shots came.

"If he came from a more privileged background he might not be in court or prison," Mr Finlay submitted. "Normality is virtually impossible for young men like him."

Judge Ryan said that in sentencing she took into account Devoy's previous convictions and the level of them as well as his "sad family background". She said she also had the benefit of letters handed into court on his behalf from a treatment centre.

Ms Victoria McElligott in evidence at the trial told prosecuting counsel, Ms Mary Rose Gearty BL, she identified Devoy whom she knew "all my life" as the gunman who fired the shots at her brothers, Eugene and John Paul, from the back seat of the speeding car as they stood outside their home on Cranogue Close.

She said she had spoken to one of her brothers about noticing the Mazda car with yellow registration plates around their estate in the weeks prior to the day of the shooting when she saw it drive towards her with the two back windows down and containing three people wearing hoodies and their faces covered.

Ms McElligott told Ms Gearty she shouted "here it comes" to her brothers who were across the road when she saw it arrive and a person in the back seat begin shooting out of the car window with a "cowboy gun".

She heard "four or five shots" while her brothers ran for safety into a neighbours house. The gunman then "threw himself" back into the car and she got a look at his face when a scarf fell from it.

"I screamed and shouted it's 'Bottler Devoy'," Ms McElligott said before explaining that "Bottler" was his nickname and she had known the Devoys as neighbours "all my life".

Ms McElligott said Devoy then pointed the gun out the window at her and she pulled a coat over her head until she heard the car moving off.

She ran to the neighbour's house where her brothers had also fled and was let in after banging on the door.

Ms McElligott said the woman in this house complained about a problem with her back and she feared she had been shot. When she lifted up the woman's top she found a small graze on her lower back.

She said she had "an unobstructed view" while observing the movements of the car which she believed was the same car she had seen parked on Balbutcher Drive outside various neighbours' houses, including the Devoy's, over the previous few weeks.

When suggested that "a normal person would run for cover" in the scene she had described, Ms McElligott replied: "I was watching my two brothers getting nearly killed."

Mr Eugene McElligott told of the "wind going past my ear" while he ran for safety into a woman's house and of finding after the shooting that "the gaff was broken up".

Mr John Paul McElligott agreed he was "terrified" by the shooting and also said that afterwards the house he escaped into was "in bits".

He had run for safety after his sister shouted and he looked up to see "a man leaning out of the back window of a car with a gun in his hands". He told Mr Finlay: "I wasn't hanging about to ask him his name."

Det Sgt Buckley agreed with Ms Gearty that the McElligotts had suffered "security problems" as a result of this case and had difficulty moving around the area and socialising.