Gardaí investigating if personal dispute led to killing of Robert O’Connor in Mountjoy Prison

Gardaí are trying to establish if the fatal attack on Robert O’Connor in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin may have arisen from a long-running dispute that began outside the prison setting and then spilled over into the jail.

Gardaí suspect the men who attacked Mr O’Connor intended to badly beat him, at the behest of another person, rather than kill him in the incident on Friday. However, the ambush in a cell on the C-division of the jail went wrong and the victim sustained a serious head injury which proved fatal.

Mr O’Connor (34) from Snowdrop Walk, Darndale, north Dublin, was taken to the Mater hospital and he died there on Tuesday.

The people Mr O’Connor had been at odds with were known to him before he was sent to prison, initially on remand, last October. When that dispute linked to his personal life began, a series of apparent tit-for-tat incidents occurred, including one man suffering a serious injury.

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[ Mountjoy prisoner was lured to another cell before fatal attack, gardaí believe ]

[ Mountjoy murder victim commended for ‘ambition to change’ shortly before attack ]

Mr O’Connor was also the victim of an assault in Mountjoy just days before he was fatally attacked last Friday, though it was unclear if that was part of the long-running personal dispute he was involved in.

Meanwhile, figures provided to The Irish Times by the Office of the Inspector of Prisons (OIP) show there have been 14 deaths among prisoners so far in 2022. The most number of deaths in recent years — 21 — occurred in 2019 and included one reported death of a prisoner after their release.

The OIP has investigated 73 deaths of prisoners since 2018 and published 50 death-in-custody reports in the same period. The office is tasked with investigating all deaths of people in the custody of the Irish Prison Service (IPS), regardless of the cause, including deaths occurring within 28 days of temporary release.

The Irish Penal Reform Trust this week raised questions about the length of time it takes for some death-in-custody reports to be published, suggesting it could be months or years before the Minister for Justice approves their release. However, an OIP spokesman defended the process, saying that actions that need to be taken by the IPS are identified and often implemented before the final reports are published.

On Thursday, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee described Mr O’Connor’s killing a “very tragic situation”, adding it was “a very rare type of incident to happen in our prisons”.

“Every effort is made, every protocol is put in place, to make sure that where there are gangs, where there are individuals who have grievances, where there are challenges between individuals, that they are not kept within the vicinity of each other,” she said.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said a thorough criminal investigation into the killing was being carried out. “We are obviously gathering all the evidence, in terms of what the prison authorities can tell us, and obviously physical evidence and CCTV,” he said.

If investigating gardaí identified any “immediate” issues prison authorities should address, these would be communicated to the prison service, he said.

The Minister and the Garda Commissioner were speaking at an event in Kevin Street Garda station, which saw the first batch of commemorative centenary medals awarded to gardaí to mark the 100-year anniversary of the force.