Cocaine Wars (28 page)
Authors: Mick McCaffrey
It would later emerge that nine plasma televisions had been bought by inmates on the E1 landing. The internal inquiry did not lead to anybody losing their jobs but several staff members were transferred to other jails and the system of buying TVs ended, much to the fury of everyone on E1, including Brian Rattigan. John Daly was a marked man after that. He was immediately transferred to Cork Prison, and lost his privileges. After Daly's call put an end to the old regime in Portlaoise, there were reports that several criminals had clubbed together and put a â¬50,000 contract on his head. The twenty-seven-year-old was released in August 2007, and it was not long before jailhouse justice caught up with him. He was a free man for just two months when a gunman shot him five times in a taxi as he returned to his home in Finglas. Gardaà had warned him that his life was in danger and had given him personal security advice. He was effectively a dead man walking after the
Liveline
fiasco. Daly was murdered by a thirty-three-year-old criminal, who took over the running of the gang once led by Martin âMarlo' Hyland in Finglas. His murder was not directly linked to the Portlaoise incident, but there was a queue of people lining up to take him out.
Although Daly was dead, his legacy lives on in Portlaoise. As a result, sniffer dogs have been brought in to screen all staff and visitors for drugs. This crackdown has not gone down well with the inmates. A dozen prisoners, including Christy Keane and Brian Rattigan, staged a âdirty litter' protest and gathered all their rubbish and threw it all over the landing. The âdirty dozen' were all sent to solitary confinement and the security measures remained in place. No security system is perfect, however, and even after the crackdown some prisoners still managed to hold onto their contraband. Brian Rattigan has been caught with a phone on three separate occasions since Daly's murder. In 2008, one cell search showed how much money the drug dealers were making. A search was carried out of Brian Meehan's cell, where a Franck Muller watch worth over â¬20,000 and a Breitling Bentley special edition gold watch valued at â¬5,850 were found. These watches were seized and subsequently sold by CAB. Meehan had long been on their radar, and CAB had previously seized â¬800,000, which had been hidden in his Austrian bank account. Meehan was in business long before the advent of the Celtic Tiger, so the drug dealers must have been making vast sums before the recession. In the same year, five phones, four SIM cards and chargers were also found during a search. Six criminals were implicated, including John Gilligan. Gardaà moved him to an isolation cell, and he was charged with illegally having a phone. Karl Breen was also found with a phone. Breen was something of a repeat offender, much like Brian Rattigan. He had caused the Irish Prison Service a major headache, when it emerged that he was maintaining an active Bebo page from his jail cell. Using the pseudonym âInfamousD22', Breen posted videos of himself joking outside Garda stations and even had a demonstration video on how to use a Glock handgun.
Brian Rattigan, like all other prisoners, is only allowed to exercise outside for two hours each day and apart from that he rarely sees sunlight. He was given a rare trip to Dublin in April 2005, but the journey was not one that he would enjoy. He was going to Dublin Circuit Court to face his punishment over a vicious assault on a taxi driver on 2 April 2000. Rattigan and Natasha McEnroe were on a night out with Shay O'Byrne and Sharon Rattigan, as well as Rattigan's uncle, thirty-seven-year-old Patrick Dunphy from Galtymore Road. The group were on James's Street at around 2.00 a.m. and were trying to hail a taxi. A taxi pulled up just past them and another couple jumped in. A row developed because Rattigan and the others felt that the taxi should have picked them up and not the other couple. The taxi driver refused to throw his fare out and told Rattigan that another car would surely be along in a minute. Rattigan violently attacked the innocent cabbie, and he attempted to drive away. He jumped into the moving car. He pulled the driver's head back by the hair, and rained blows down on him and put him in a headlock. The driver managed to hit the brakes and then escaped. Two other taxi drivers drove past the scene and saw their colleague being attacked and went to assist him. They were also assaulted. Rattigan was found guilty of assault causing serious harm, violent disorder and attempted seizure of a taxi. Judge Barry White called Rattigan a âvery dangerous young man', and imposed a consecutive three-year jail sentence for each offence, to take effect when he completed his drugs sentence and term for shooting at GardaÃ. He said he was concerned with the âhuge, unprovoked violence used', which resembled a âfull-blown riot'. Brian Rattigan was not impressed with the punishment handed down to him. He had expected that his sentence would run concurrent to the other two sentences he was already serving, but the judge was not playing ball. Even with good behaviour â if he could manage to behave â Rattigan would be behind bars for at least an extra two years. It was not just Rattigan who was charged and convicted over the taxi driver assault. Shay O'Byrne was fined
â¬
200 for violent disorder, and the judge accepted that he had been on the periphery of the incident. Sharon Rattigan was fined
â¬
200 for the same offence, and Natasha McEnroe received a â¬175 fine, also for violent disorder. The three had all pleaded guilty. Patrick Dunphy was handed a two-year suspended sentence, and ordered to carry out 240 hours' community service, after pleading guilty to reckless endangerment.
Having seized the mobile phone in Rattigan's cell with photos from crime scenes, Gardaà knew that the criminal was continuing to lead his gang from the inside. An incident occurred in November 2005, that highlighted the lengths that Rattigan was prepared to go to to get revenge on the Gardaà he blamed for putting him behind bars.
Rattigan had a deep hatred for a detective involved with Declan Gavin's murder investigation. Threats against Gardaà are very rare but are taken extremely seriously by the top brass. Ireland is not like Italy, where the Mafia see the police as being fair game for murder. Any threat against a Garda officer is given absolute priority, so the message is sent out that threats and intimidation will never be accepted and will result in the full rigour of the law being used against those who make threats. On 1 August 2005, a person picked up the public telephone at the junction of Old County Road and Clonard Road in Crumlin, and dialled 999. The caller informed the operator that a prisoner in Portlaoise Prison named Brian Rattigan had offered to pay â¬15,000 to anybody who was willing to shoot the named detective. Gardaà were immediately informed and rushed to the phone box, but the caller had left. The phone box was examined by a Scenes of Crime Unit, but nothing of any evidential value was gleaned. A copy of the 999 call was received, and Gardaà estimate that the fifteen-second phone call was made by a male caller aged between forty and fifty. A full investigation was launched, but it could not be determined who had made the call. Gardaà pursued various lines of inquiry. The first was that Rattigan had taken out the contract in revenge for being charged with the Gavin murder and another was that a local crime family, who lived close to the telephone box, was responsible. It was never definitively determined if Brian Rattigan was responsible, but Gardaà had little doubt that the threat was a real and credible one. All necessary precautions were put in place, in case somebody was crazy enough to take up the contract. With junkies prepared to murder people for less than â¬2,000, it could not be dismissed that somebody would look at the â¬15,000 on the table and feel that the offer was too good to refuse. A few months later, a shotgun cartridge was placed on the windscreen wiper of the detective's car, which was parked on the road outside his house. He immediately reported the incident to his superiors and a major inquiry was launched. It was determined that the cartridge was a Brennox Deerhunting variety, which is a common type of shotgun ammunition. Detective Inspector Brian Sutton was called into the investigation because he was leading the probe into the contract placed on the detective's head two months previously. There was little doubt that the two incidents were linked. The person who left the cartridge on the car was alert enough to wear gloves, because no DNA evidence was recovered from it.
The threat on the detective's life was very worrying. The âG' district is among the toughest areas in the country to police. It is in many ways a thankless job, dealing with criminals who have no respect for the Gardaà and who are not afraid to make threats.
To some people in Crumlin and Drimnagh, Brian Rattigan was somewhat of a folk hero. They believed that he had been unfairly targeted by the Gardaà and stitched up for Declan Gavin's murder. He was seen as a bit of a Robin Hood type figure, who would pay for headstones on the graves of the recently deceased if their families could not afford one. He was remembered as a young lad who worked hard and earned his wages, not like some of the other criminals. That was the perception that some people had, even if it wasn't always accurate. However, an incident occurred in December 2006 that would permanently see Brian Rattigan lose any remaining respect he had in the wider community.
Sinking to a New Low
T
HERE ARE RARELY
innocent victims in gangland culture. You can count on one hand the people who have been caught up in violence that had nothing to do with them and died as a result. Latvian mother-of-two, Baiba Saulite, was one. Limerick rugby player, Shane Geoghegan, was another. Apprentice plumber Anthony Campbell was also murdered for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as was mechanic Eddie Ward, who was gunned down with âMr Fixit' car dealer Brian Downes.
Twenty-one-year-old Eddie McCabe was an innocent victim of the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud, although he was no innocent and had been in prison for most of his life since the day he turned thirteen. Eddie McCabe could be described as being a victim of circumstance: of being propelled into a situation over which he had no control.
For the first twelve years of his life, things looked good for Eddie McCabe. He was born into a good family who loved him dearly. He lived with his mother, Linda, and father, Eddie Snr, in Brookfield in Tallaght. Eddie was the eldest of four boys. His youngest brother was six years his junior and the twins were in the middle, just three years younger than Eddie. From an early age, McCabe showed promise and was always at the top of his class in primary school, so much so that his teacher wanted to move him to a more advanced class, because he was very intelligent for his age. He was a loveable, friendly and popular boy who was devoted to his dad. He was creative, showed great ability as an artist, was good at working with his hands and regularly wrote poems. Maybe he would have followed his father into carpentry, but like most boys at that age he didn't yet know what he wanted to do when he grew up. Something happened in November 1995 that made Eddie McCabe grow up overnight. It was a devastating event that turned Eddie's happy and secure world upside down.
On the evening of 24 November, Eddie McCabe Snr drove his wife to a friend's house in a nearby estate in her new Nissan Micra. The couple planned to enjoy a few drinks after getting a babysitter to look after the kids. Linda and Eddie had broken up a few times over the years, but had got back together six months previously, and for the first time in years were getting on really well. Eddie's mother was as happy as she had ever been, and the future seemed bright. At about 12.15 a.m. Linda decided to go home. Eddie Snr dropped her at their house. He got out of the car and kissed his wife like they were teenagers. The thirty-five-year-old told his wife that he was just going to have a few more drinks and would be home later. The last thing Linda said to him was, âPlease be careful, that's my little baby,' in a joking reference to her new car. She went to bed oblivious that that was the last time that she would ever see he husband alive. Eddie Snr went back to his friends' house and had a few more drinks, before deciding to head to a nightclub in Blessington. When they arrived the bouncers wouldn't let them in, so they sat in Linda's car for a while and listened to music. They eventually saw two women who they knew from Tallaght. One of them was a single mother-of-two called Catherine Brennan. McCabe, Brennan and their two friends headed back to Catherine's house in Kiltalawn. They drank more alcohol and somebody pulled out some hash for them to smoke. Nobody had any cigarette papers, so Eddie and Catherine drove to a nearby twenty-four-hour garage. After picking up the messages, Eddie was driving back to the house party when something caused him to stop the car. He undid his seatbelt and walked to the boot of the Micra. He was approached by a gunman who shot him in the head and chest, killing him instantly. Catherine Brennan was sitting in the front passenger seat and was oblivious to what was going on. She did not seem to be panicked, because her seatbelt was still on. Whoever murdered Eddie McCabe walked up to her window and callously shot her in the face, from just inches away. Catherine Brennan died instantly.
At 4.45 a.m. Linda was awoken by a knock on her door. It was the Gardaà asking if she owned a Nissan Micra, if her husband was at home and if he had a goatee beard. Linda instantly knew that something was wrong and feared the worst. Eddie McCabe and Catherine Brennan had been murdered literally a hundred yards away from the McCabe home, across a small field. Eddie Jnr and his brothers were also woken by the commotion. Eddie Jnr, who was only twelve, jumped out of his bedroom window and ran across the field. Gardaà had not been at the murder scene long and did not have time to cover the two bodies. The youngster ran across the police line and ducked past the Garda who was on duty preserving the scene. He grabbed his dead father in his arms and held him tightly, while crying hysterically. He had to be pulled away. The ever-increasing crowd, which had gathered to look at the carnage, was struck by Eddie's brothers, the young twins, praying aloud for Jesus to save their daddy. Back in 1995 murders were rare, especially double murders, and the killings attracted a lot of attention. Neither McCabe nor Brennan were involved in crime. A definitive motive for the murders has never been established. Linda issued a statement through her solicitor at the time, denying that her husband was a drug dealer or was murdered over drugs. She said that her family was greatly offended by the innuendo that suggested McCabe and Brennan were having an affair. Gardaà believe that Eddie McCabe was shot dead because two of his close associates were involved in drug dealing, but there is absolutely no evidence that McCabe himself was a drug dealer or involved in any sort of criminality. The murderer was never found, and the case remains open and unsolved to this day. The few days following the murder were a blur to the McCabe family. Eddie Jnr read the following poem out at his father's funeral, which left the congregation in floods of tears. It read:
To my dad
You are my dad, the one and only
Now you are gone we feel so lonely
Dad, I will always be thinking of you
When I look after Mum for you
I wish we could be together
But still I will love you forever and ever
Love Edward
I will miss you Daddy
Eddie Jnr's problems began shortly after his father's murder. He found it impossible to sleep at night and lay awake thinking of what had happened to his dad. When he went to school, he invariably used to fall asleep at the back of the class and the lad that had been at the top of his class, well ahead of his other classmates, soon fell behind. He lost his will to learn and soon started bunking off school and eventually dropped out completely. Linda always brought him back, but Eddie was stubborn and always mitched off as soon as her back was turned. Eddie then started hanging around with a bad crowd and was often present when his mates were stealing cars to go joyriding. He started to attract the attention of the local Gardaà and soon developed the reputation as a truant and a general troublemaker, and was also a frequent runaway. When he was just thirteen, Eddie McCabe featured in a newspaper article after he ran away from home. His mother was interviewed and appealed for him to return home, saying that he had gone wild since the death of his father and was causing trouble and was not going to school. Linda McCabe said it was the tenth time that year that Eddie had left home. She was then quoted as saying: âLast week he told me, “I don't care if I live or die.” He hates everybody.'
Eddie first appeared before the Children's Court when he was just fourteen. He was charged with missing school and being a passenger in a stolen car. Linda accompanied him. The judge remarked that he was so small that he would need a box to be seen. The kindly judge said that he had the face of an angel, and let him off with a rap on the knuckles. It would not be the last time that he was before the courts. Just a few months later, he was back and was sent to the Oberstown young offenders' institute, for missing school and stealing a car. He spent a few weeks there before escaping in his bare feet. He told his mother that he didn't like being locked up because it gave him too much time to think. When he completed his sentence, Eddie began to run away from home regularly and effectively left the care of his mother, staying in friends' houses and also being looked after by relations. Linda McCabe could not bear to live in Tallaght any more, passing by the site of her husband's murder each day. So the family moved to a house in Rafter's Lane in Drimnagh. Eddie spent a few weeks there but kept on running away, even staying in a tent in a field near their old house in Tallaght for a week, before being tracked down by his distraught mother. On another occasion, his grandmother found Eddie unconscious, lying on top of his father's grave. She had gone to pay her respects to her dead son. An empty bottle of vodka lay by her grandson's side and his face was stained with tears. He had spent the night asleep next to his father. After running away again, Eddie was found in the shed of the old family home in Tallaght. Eddie Snr was a skilled carpenter and had built the shed. When Eddie was found, he said that he went there because it reminded him of his dad.
Linda was herself struggling to accept the loss of her husband, and life was very tough, trying to come to terms with her grief and pull her troubled son back from the brink, as well as look after his three younger brothers. But much as she tried, Eddie did not allow himself to be helped. He was in and out of detention centres, and when he was just thirteen, somebody gave him a painkiller to help him sleep. He said that he liked the way it made him feel and started to heavily abuse pills from then on, mixed with large amounts of cannabis and alcohol. He used to regularly steal cars while high on drink and drugs. He often crashed and was arrested by GardaÃ. He would then be sent away to detention centres again. Every time he was taken into state care, he quickly escaped. Once he even managed to flee the Children's Court in Garda handcuffs, after being arrested in Blessington for stealing a car. On another occasion, he stole a horse and rode off into the countryside to escape the pressures of life and to think about his father.
Eddie once told his mother: âI will be lucky if I live to see my twenty-first birthday.' His father's death had pushed him to the edge and he always imagined that he would be killed in a highspeed car crash. Although Eddie did not live at home, he was still very close to his mother and brothers. Linda met him every week. She used to take him to Joel's restaurant for a hearty meal and give him money for clothes. She was at least comforted by the fact that he was not sleeping rough and was with friends and family who understood him and understood the trauma that he had been through. Linda once asked Edward (she called her husband Eddie and son Edward) why he wouldn't come home. He answered that when he saw her, he didn't think it was right that she should be alone and without her husband by her side.
When he was seventeen, Eddie was old enough to be dealt with by the law as an adult. He was sent to St Patrick's Institution for the first time. For the next three years, he was regularly sent to prison for a few months, before being released for a few months and then sent back again, mainly to Mountjoy. He was never a free man for a full year, and he managed to accumulate nearly fifty criminal convictions. The vast majority were for stealing cars and his most serious conviction was for ramming a Garda car. His addiction to tablets had become very serious â some days he was taking up to two dozen Valium.
Eddie McCabe was a tiny scrap of a lad, but was an accomplished boxer and fought at a high level with his friend, Joey O'Brien, who was a member of the Rattigan gang. When Eddie used to go to town, his friends always joked that he was their bodyguard because he had the ability to knock people out with one punch, although he was gentle and wouldn't fight for the sake of it. He was more likely to be seen with a smile on his face than an aggressive scowl. Eddie would never have been involved with drug dealing or gangland activity though, and was a relatively harmless sort who posed no danger to ordinary members of society, except if he took a fancy to their cars. When you are sent to prison, you have to adapt to your surroundings and do what it takes to get by. McCabe had the gift of the gab and got on with people. He was able to survive in jail by himself and didn't mess around with gangs or try to get involved with âMr Big' types to protect himself. This made him a vulnerable target. In 2003, McCabe was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for stealing a car in Tallaght and ramming a patrol car. He served two and a half years, and when he was coming to the end of his sentence, he owned up to the fact that he had a mobile phone in his cell and handed it over to the prison authorities. It was by far the longest sentence he had ever served and he didn't want to put his release date in jeopardy by being caught with an illegal phone. This led to him being branded as a rat and he was attacked in his cell with a knife. A close associate of Brian Rattigan sliced him on the leg and face and gave him a severe beating. Almost overnight Eddie fell out with his friends who were members of the Rattigan gang. Linda McCabe knew that there was something wrong with her son, but he was never one to open up and burden her with his problems. Eddie McCabe was released from prison in December 2005. He was only out a short time when he met a local girl, Donna Mills. The couple fell in love and after they were together a couple of months, Donna became pregnant. This was the happiest that Eddie had been in a long time. He moved back in with his mother and seemed to be at peace with himself. His relationship was going strong and he spent most of his time with Donna and was looking forward to being a dad.
Unfortunately, Eddie McCabe had been messed up for so long that it was hard to break out of the dangerous cycle. He was lured back to his old ways, and was arrested for stealing a car and sentenced to four months in prison in August 2006. While he was in jail, his son, Eddie McCabe III, was born. Linda went to visit him in Mountjoy and showed him a photograph of his healthy baby. He broke down and said that he didn't want his child to grow up without a father and vowed that he was going to turn his life around and break away from the old temptations. However, Linda noticed that something had changed in her lad. His happy smile had faded, and for the last four months of his life a change came over him. It looked like he was doing heavy drugs and was worried about something. Something was wrong, but Linda couldn't put her finger on it. It didn't help that he was back in Mountjoy, where he had been attacked a few months before. He had to go into protective custody for his own sake to make sure that he wasn't attacked again. He was released from jail in November 2006, when his son was six weeks old. He then mostly stayed with Donna and her family so he could look after Eddie III. He got up for all the night feeds and never let his son out of his arms. One of Linda's most treasured possessions is a photo of the two Eddies asleep, holding hands. On 1 December 2006, Eddie had been out of jail for only three weeks. He was in Donna's house with the baby when a navy car pulled up outside. It was about 7.50 p.m. when Eddie gave her a kiss and said that he was going out for something and wouldn't be long. A witness described the driver of the car as being a big, heavy-set man. Eddie had been in the middle of cooking a chicken, and at 8.25 p.m., Donna rang him. He told her that the chicken would be ready now, but not to put the chips on, because he was on his way home and would do it then. Mobile phone cell site analysis later determined that McCabe was in the Dolphin's Barn area when he received this call. When there was no sign of him, Donna rang his mobile at 8.50 p.m., but it was turned off. Around the same time that Donna was trying to get Eddie on the phone, a car ground to a halt and the back-seat passenger grabbed the unconscious Eddie McCabe and threw him out onto the hard concrete. The driver quickly left the area, leaving the twenty-one-year-old for dead in a laneway just off Tyrconnell Road in Inchicore.