Two men acquitted over Lordship Credit Union robbery

Alison O'Riordan and Eoin Reynolds

After a trial lasting over three months, judges presiding at a vacation sitting of the Special Criminal Court acquitted two men of carrying out the 2013 credit union robbery during which Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe was murdered.

Concluding the five-hour judgement at the Special Criminal Court on Monday, presiding judge Mr Justice Tony Hunt said the evidence established beyond a reasonable doubt that Armagh man James Flynn was an active member of the gang that carried out the robbery and that he was intimately involved with garda murderer Aaron Brady and another man involved in the theft of the getaway car.

"The evidence establishes that he participated with Brady in conducting two surveillance instances on the day of and the night before," he added.

The judge said Flynn lied about his whereabouts at the time of the robbery and that he was involved with Brady and others in the planning and execution of the crime.

He said Flynn drove his BMW to the site where the getaway car was burned out and removed the culprits from the burn site. He said therefore that Flynn was an accessory before and after the event.

Mr Justice Hunt said the State's case was that Flynn was one of the four men directly involved in the robbery.

"There is no doubt at all as to the general complicity of Aaron Brady and James Flynn in this matter, but ultimately we are not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that James Flynn was one of the direct participants in the robbery."

However, earlier on Monday the non-jury court did find Flynn guilty of conspiring with garda killer Aaron Brady to steal a car that was used in the robbery of Lordship Credit Union.

Direct evidence

Flynn's co-accused Brendan Treanor was also acquitted this evening by the Special Criminal Court of the charge of robbery, with the three-judge court finding that there was no direct evidence to link him to the scene of the credit union and insufficient evidence to convict him of the count.

Mr Justice Hunt, sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley and Judge Alan Mitchell, said whatever about Mr Treanor's involvement with members of the gang who carried out the robbery, the prosecution had not excluded the reasonable possibility that the defendant was in fact at home at the time of the robbery.

The judge added: "The case was not opened or closed by reference to joint enterprise or common design, his presence at the car park is a central plank of the case. There is no other overt evidence to link Mr Treanor to the scene or the destruction of the getaway car."

It was the prosecution's case that Mr Treanor was one of four people who jumped over the wall of the credit union as a convoy of cars carrying cash and gardaí was blocked into the car park by the stolen Volkswagen Passat.

Mr Justice Hunt said, although the court was satisfied from call data records that Mr Treanor was closely associated with the criminal gang that robbed the credit union and had approved of its activities, it could only consider the indictment presented to them and said the court could not convict with a sufficient degree of certainty.

"We have no option but to enter a not guilty verdict," he said.

Referring to Mr Treanor's phone on the night, the judge said its pattern of communication was entirely consistent with some involvement in the robbery but did not serve to put him at the scene.

Other strands of evidence, he said, showed Mr Treanor's potential involvement but fell short of "a compelling conclusion" that he was present at the scene of the robbery.

"He was party in some way to the events that evening but they do not unequivocally lend to the extension of him being an active participant in the robbery," the judge added.

Tattoo

Mr Justice Hunt referenced a tattoo on Mr Treanor's back as being "the most intriguing, striking and colourful part" of the case.

It was the State's contention that the tattoo was a "pictorial admission" of Mr Treanor's involvement in the robbery of the Dundalk credit union during which Det Gda Donohoe was shot dead.

A close-up photograph of the large tattoo drawn across Mr Treanor's upper back, which was taken by gardaí upon his arrest in April 2021, was displayed on screens in the courtroom during the trial.

In his closing speech, Lorcan Staines SC, alongside senior counsel Brendan Grehan, prosecuting, called it "extraordinary" that Mr Treanor had chosen in 2018 to get a tattoo on his back that had a number of elements which had "striking" coincidences to what happened at Lordship.

The tattoo depicted four males with hats, including one holding a long barrelled firearm, along with a woman wearing a balaclava with a gun to her lips, a large BMW car, a pistol, rounds of ammunition, a knuckle duster and wads of money.

Counsel said Mr Treanor had the large tattoo printed on his back "perhaps at a time when the defendant felt long enough had gone by and he had got away with what he had done".

The prosecution called it an "act of hubris" on the defendant's part.

Mr Justice Hunt said on Monday that the court did not accept defence counsel's suggestion that the tattoo was irrelevant and called it "plainly relevant and not just an unhappy coincidence".

He said the truth of the matter was as suggested by the prosecution that Mr Treanor had applied the tattoo as a sense of impunity based on the passage of time.

"Whereas this tattoo can be regarded as a pictorial admission that he profoundly approved of these crimes, that he was a member in the broad sense of the gang and highlighted the self-serving mendacity of his protests of innocence, it does not prove he was one of the four in the carpark [of the credit union] or resolve the other doubts," he said.

Speculation

In his closing address last May, senior counsel Sean Guerin, for Mr Treanor, said there was no case against his client, who was accused of participation in the credit union robbery that resulted in the death of Det Gda Donohoe.

The barrister also argued that there was no evidence Mr Treanor left his home on the evening of the robbery and that the prosecution relied on speculation and theories that "make no sense".

There was, the lawyer said, a more convincing case to be made against at least two others who were not before the courts, and he accused the prosecution of "desperation" in how it had put forward its evidence.

Mr Treanor was also acquitted by the Special Criminal Court of a charge of conspiracy to commit burglaries, with the three-judge court finding that there was insufficient evidence to convict him.

Brendan Treanor (34), previously of Emer Terrace, Castletown Road, Dundalk, Co Louth, and James Flynn (32), from South Armagh, were charged with the robbery of €7,000 at Lordship Credit Union in Bellurgan, Co Louth, on January 25th, 2013.

Both men were also charged that between September 11th, 2012, and January 23rd, 2013, they conspired with convicted garda murderer Aaron Brady and others to enter residential premises with the intention of stealing car keys.

Both accused had pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Aaron Brady (32), previously of New Road, Crossmaglen, Co Armagh, is serving a life sentence with a 40-year minimum having been found guilty of murdering Det Gda Adrian Donohoe and of the robbery at Lordship. He denied any involvement in the robbery and is awaiting an appeal against his conviction next month.

Aaron Brady's father Tony Brady was excluded from court in May by the judges after he posted a video online accusing a garda who gave evidence during the trial of committing perjury.

Before beginning the judgment on Monday, Mr Justice Hunt said he had received a note on behalf of Mr Brady. The judge said Mr Brady had been excluded because he "abused the facility of being here by publishing scandalous material which was not a fair reflection of anything said in court".

He said Mr Brady was "excluded on that basis and remains excluded".

The trial of the two defendants finished on May 19th, following 55 days of evidence, legal argument and closing speeches for the prosecution and defence.

A sentencing hearing for Flynn will be held on November 13th after he was earlier found guilty of conspiring with Brady to steal a car that was used in the robbery of the credit union.

As part of its case, the prosecution relied on evidence that the Volkswagen Passat was stolen from outside a home in Clogherhead in the early hours of the morning two days before the Lordship robbery. It was the prosecution case that the same car was used to block the entrance of the Credit Union and that the four raiders in the carpark got into the Volkswagen which was then driven at speed to a remote laneway in South Armagh where it was burned out.

Mr Justice Hunt said the court has "no reason to doubt" that the Passat was stolen from Clogherhead as part of the robbery plan and was the same one used in the robbery and getaway before being set on fire. The court also found that Flynn conspired with two others to steal the Passat, basing its finding on CCTV footage showing Flynn's distinctive BMW 5-series with a matt finish wraparound roof acting suspiciously in the early hours on the morning of the theft near to where the Passat was stolen.

The judge convicted Flynn of conspiracy to steal the Passat but found that the evidence in relation to the robbery at Lordship did not prove the prosecution case that Flynn was one of the men directly involved.

In its case regarding a series of separate creeper burglaries the defendants were also alleged to have conspired in, the prosecution relied on mobile phone evidence which it said showed phones belonging to Flynn and Mr Treanor pinged off masts or cell sites adjacent to homes where cars were stolen in the early hours of the morning at multiple locations on various dates in 2012 and 2013.

Mr Justice Hunt said the prosecution had failed to prove that the cell sites referred to were the same ones through which the two accused mens' calls had been made. He said the court could "draw no conclusions" from the cell site analysis and dismissed the evidence put forward by the prosecution in relation this.

The evidence in relation to the creeper burglaries therefore amounted to nothing more than suspicion, the judge said, and "a lot more evidence would be needed" to prove the charge of conspiracy to commit burglaries to the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt.