COURTS GET BACK TO BUSINESS

• Published date: 24 September 2022
• Publication title: Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)

Another high-profile appeal involves Boy B, one of two teenagers convicted in connection with the murder of schoolgirl Ana Kriégel in a derelict house in west Dublin four years ago

Gerard "The Monk" Hutch and a former Sinn Féin councillor, Jonathan Dowdall, face trial on October 3rd before the non-jury Special Criminal Court on charges in connection with the murder of Kinahan gang member David Byrne at the Regency Hotel on Dublin's northside in February 2016.

A separate case in October involves a High Court application by the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) against Daniel Kinahan and Thomas Bomber Kavanagh for orders aimed at seizing a luxury mansion in west Dublin for the State as allegedly representing the proceeds of crime.

Kinahan, believed to be in Dubai, and Kavanagh, who is serving a 21-year sentence in England on £30 million (€34 million) drug importation charges, have so far not indicated any intention to participate in the hearing. The Cab previously told the court it believes both play leading roles in the Kinahan crime cartel.

The bureau claims information from a protected witness indicates businessman Jimmy Mansfield junior gave the property at 10 Coldwater Lakes in Saggart, Dublin to the cartel as part repayment for a failure to make property investments with some €4.5 million cash the gang gave him in 2009.

The Cab believes the property came under the effective control of Daniel Kinahan some time after 2014 and says there was evidence of his residing there when it was raided by gardaí in early 2015.

Jimmy Mansfield jnr and his brother Patrick Joseph Mansfield previously consented to orders waiving any claim against the property.

Backlog

This law term will mark a return, after some two years of COVID-19 restrictions, to business as usual in the civil and criminal courts. A range of court lists, and some applications, will continue to be dealt with remotely or via hybrid, mixed remote and physical hearings.

A busy term is expected as the courts will have to deal with new litigation while continuing to try to clear a backlog of cases, particularly affecting criminal trials and family law cases, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Waiting times have been substantially cut in the Court of Appeal which will on October 5th hear an appeal by Boy B, one of two boys convicted in June 2019 of Kriégel's murder. A Central Criminal Court jury had accepted the prosecution case that Boy B lured her to a derelict house in St Catherine's Park in Lucan...