Two in court in connection with Roy Collins murder

Two men are due in court today charged in connection with the murder of a man whose family have been relocated under witness protection.

Roy Collins, 34, was shot dead in April 2009 outside his family’s arcade business at the Roxboro shopping centre in Limerick.

Mr Collins was targeted because a member of his family had testified against a senior figure in the city’s McCarthy-Dundon criminal gang.

At the time of his murder, government ministers accused the gangsters involved of a direct attack on the criminal justice system.

It prompted new anti-gang legislation which increased garda powers and brought in criminal offences on membership of criminal gangs.

In May 2010 James Dillon, 26, originally from the southside of Limerick was jailed for life for the murder of Roy Collins.

The two latest suspects - a man in his 20s and another in his 30s - are due before the non-jury Special Criminal Court in Dublin this morning.

The Collins family left their Limerick home and business and a life of 24-hour armed garda protection for relocation outside Ireland last year.

Steve Collins, who owned the Steering Wheel pub in Roxboro, was under constant threat along with his wife Carmel and their adult children, Steve junior and Leeann.

The family have been targets of the McCarthy-Dundon outfit since December 19 2004 when adopted son Ryan-Lee refused to serve the 14-year-old sister of Wayne Dundon at the family’s pub, Brannigan’s.

Wayne Dundon threatened that night to shoot the then 18-year-old barman and hours later a gunman shot him twice in the legs.

Dundon was subsequently convicted of threatening to kill.

In a separate case, an ex-girlfriend of gang member Ger Dundon turned state witness. April Collins, no relation to the exiled family, was central to the prosecution of Wayne and John Dundon last year for making threats against members of her family.