Husband jailed for hiring ‘unhinged’ hitman

A husband who hired an “unhinged” hitman in a “grotesque plan” to kill a couple in Canada who were having an “online affair” with his wife has been jailed for four and a half years.

Bryan Kennedy (35) was today sentenced at the Central Criminal Court by Ms Justice Caroline Biggs to five years’ imprisonment with the final six months suspended for six months.

At Kennedy’s first sentence hearing in January, Ms Justice Biggs said she wanted to allow time for the child and family agency Tusla to put in place supports for Kennedy’s children so they would not suffer prejudice due to his prison sentence.

The judge said that during the suspended six-month portion of the sentence Kennedy was to engage with all training and educational courses and with emotional and mental support facilities recommended by the probation service.

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Ms Justice Biggs said that Kennedy had been “very, very co-operative” with agencies regarding his children and had attended all appointments with all groups involved to date.

The court previously heard that Kennedy was the primary carer for his children and that his former wife, who is disabled and uses a wheelchair, was unable to provide the required care the children need.

In sentencing Kennedy last January, Ms Justice Biggs said that Kennedy “hatched the plan” to kill his wife’s online friends with a man he knew to be “unhinged” and who had previous convictions. She said the man he attempted to get to carry out the killings, named ‘AL’ for legal reasons, warned Kennedy that he was embarking on a “dangerous road” but that Kennedy proceeded nonetheless. “His decision to engage in this grotesque plan is not under duress but was voluntary,” Ms Justice Biggs said.

Kennedy paid €8,000 to the would-be assassin by taking loans from family and friends. He engaged, the judge said, in a plan to kill two people as well as a discussion as to whether it would be cheaper to kill just one, before electing to kill the couple. He provided personal details of the two women and accessed his wife’s Facebook page in pursuit of his plan.

The judge said his later decision to pull out was not because he didn’t want to have the two women killed but because he came to have doubts about AL’s bona fides and started considering whether he could carry out the plan himself.

Backfiring

The judge said the backfiring of the plan was not a mitigating factor but she noted that Kennedy had been threatened and intimidated by AL. The evidence of one witness was that Kennedy came to be “terrified” of AL.

Ms Justice Biggs said mitigation from that was limited because Kennedy “must have known that if he engages with someone who agrees to be a conduit to kill two people or to himself kill two people, that person is dangerous and unhinged”.

Among the mitigating factors, the judge said, were that Kennedy was a good father who had lived through difficult life circumstances. She said Kennedy had co-operated with gardaí, made full admissions immediately on being questioned and pleaded guilty.

The judge also noted Kennedy’s remorse and his history of depression which had been largely untreated at the time of the offences. She set the headline sentence at eight years but having considered all mitigating factors she reduced it to five years with the final six months suspended for six months.

Kennedy, with an address at Mount Tallant Avenue, Harold’s Cross, Dublin 6W, pleaded guilty in July last year to soliciting the man to murder Stephanie Poirier on a date unknown between October 1st, 2019, and January 11th, 2020, both dates inclusive, within the State.

Kennedy pleaded guilty to the same offence relating to Ms Poirier’s partner, Clara Houdebrumette. Both women live in Canada.

He had told gardaí he backtracked on the deal, telling AL that €10,000 was too much money.

Det Sgt O’Malley told the court that, when contacted, the couple, who live in rural Quebec, expressed no concern for their wellbeing after being told of the situation.