A MAN has been jailed for stealing a vehicle that was later used as the getaway car in a shooting over 3½ years ago.
Robert Delany was shot twice in Russell Rise, Tallaght, Dublin, on October 22nd, 2008. He is still in a vegetative condition in hospital.
The car Robert Gaynor (23) stole, a white Honda Integra, was discovered on the morning of the shooting abandoned in the driveway of a house in Montpelier View, Tallaght. The driver’s window was smashed and the ignition was damaged.
Gaynor was linked to the car through forensic analysis of items, including a shotgun cartridge and the broken ignition, that had been left in the vehicle.
Gaynor, of Berryfield Drive, Finglas, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to unlawfully taking possession of a vehicle from Francis McCann Car Sales, Naas Road, Dublin, on October 21st, 2008. He has 23 previous convictions for road traffic and public order offences.
Judge Martin Nolan jailed Gaynor for 20 months after saying the car was taken for the shooting, not joyriding. “I am happy to accept that he did not know it was going to be used in a shooting but knew it was going to be used in illegal activity,” the judge said.
Det Garda Michael McGrath told Ronan Kennedy, prosecuting, that “the charges before the court is what the Director of Public Prosecutions had directed out of the entire incident”. The maximum sentence available to the court was five years.
Gaynor was first arrested in March 2010 in relation to the shooting in Russell Rise, but was released without charge after questioning.
Det Garda McGrath said Gaynor was rearrested on October 19th, 2010, when DNA samples taken from the car’s ignition “were consistent” with Gaynor’s DNA profile.
Gaynor admitted taking the car and said he had been told to do so.
He told gardaí it was his understanding the vehicle would be used in an incident where “someone was to be given a fright”.
Det Garda McGrath said Gaynor was very upset over the “whole event”. He told Mr Kennedy that the car had been taken between 6pm and 6.30am on the day of the shooting.
Det Garda McGrath agreed with Luigi Rea, defending, that Gaynor’s father had died in “violent circumstances” in 1992, and that his brother Daniel died shortly after the car theft.
Mr Rea told Judge Nolan his client has not come to Garda attention since 2008 for anything “more sinister than road traffic offences”.