The mother of man who remains in need of permanent hosptial care after he was shot in the head has criticised a judge's decision to impose a 12-year sentence on her son's attacker.
Mr Justice Paul Carney sentenced Jonathan Dunne to 12 years for the attempted murder of Mr Ian Kenny in Stillorgan on July 4th, 2007 at the Central Criminal Court today.
Dunne shot Kenny, who was his friend, in the head and shoulder with a sawn-off shotgun and then threw him from his car.
Mr Kenny remains seriously ill and under permanent care in St Vincent’s Hospital where he has a breathing tube, is fed through a tube and has no control over his bladder or bowels as a result of the attack.
Outside the court Mr Kenny’s mother, Kathleen, said: “We got no justice for my son. Jonathan Dunne shot him in the head and that man is talking about Joe Duffy.
The judge is letting them off, the Government is letting them off, and the Minister for Justice is letting them off. We did not get justice in that court.’’
Dunne(23), of Windmill Court, Crumlin pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court on Monday to the attempted murder of Mr Kenny(21), of Monasteraboice Road, Crumlin at Lakelands Road, Stillorgan on July 4th, 2007.
Dune told gardaí that he had shot Mr Kenny in the head and shoulder with a double barrelled sawn-off shotgun as a favour he owed to drug dealers because he had lost £50,000 worth of drugs when he was a 16-year-old.
Before sentencing Dunne, Mr Justice Carney referred to RTE's Joe Duffy whose Livelineprogramme yesterday carried an interview with Mr Kenny's mother Mrs Kathleen Kenny.
“I have not found the interference in this case by Mr Joe Duffy while sentence is a live issue to be helpful,” he said.
The judge said that he would not have any difficulty if any of the parties to the proceedings wanted to refer the interference of Mr Duffy while sentencing was a live issue to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
He said that any of the parties could make such an application at a later stage if they wished after a consideration of the transcript.
The judge said that over the last couple of days he had given very close consideration to imposing a life sentence for two reasons.
Firstly that Mr Kenny’s family would hold the view that he has been left in a worse situation than had the attempt to assassinate him been successful, and that Dunne should not benefit from that.
Secondly, the judge said:“The message must go out from this court in the strongest possible terms that the only option to a person in that (Dunne’s) situation is to go to the Garda Siochana and place themselves in whatever programme the gardaí are in a position to make available.”
The judge said:“It is not acceptable that somebody should come into This court and say:I attempted to carry out an assassination on the instructions of a nameless godfather and on that account I should be entitled to claim mitigation.’’
He said that accepting Mr Dunne’s contentions, and he noted that from the transcript the gardaí were careful not accept his contentions, the only option is for a person to place himself in whatever programme is available.
“Otherwise we are simply handing over to people I am not prepared to hand over control of our lives to,” he said.
The judge said that while he had considered imposing a life sentence because of Dunne’s extremely young age it might be oppressive to do so and it might shut out all prospects of rehabilitation in the future.
The judge said that the attempted murder merited a sentence of 16 years imprisonment but because of the accused’s early guilty plea, his youth and his background in employment he sentenced him to 12 years imprisonment.
He also imposed a ten years prison sentence on Dunne to run concurrently for the possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life on the same date
Leave to appeal was refused.