Businessman Jim Mansfield Junior has been sentenced to two years in prison with the final six months suspended for attempting to pervert the course of justice by directing that CCTV footage be destroyed.
The footage showed Mansfield leaving a west Dublin hotel with a former employee on the morning he was kidnapped by Dessie O'Hare and Declan Duffy.
The Special Criminal Court acquitted Mansfield of conspiring with others to have Martin Byrne kidnapped by a criminal gang but convicted him of directing that the footage be destroyed.
Mansfield Jnr, of Tasaggart House in Saggart in Dublin, had pleaded not guilty to both counts.
The court found that although the 54-year-old had knowingly involved O'Hare and Duffy in his attempts to recover assets lost in the 2008 economic crash, there was insufficient evidence to show he knew the two men planned to kidnap Mr Byrne.
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Martin Byrne had previously been Head of Security at the CityWest Hotel when it was owned by the Mansfield family.
The Special Criminal Court found that Mansfield Jnr directed Martin Byrne's brother, Patrick, to destroy CCTV footage from the morning of 9 June 2015 at Finnstown House Hotel in Lucan.
Mr Justice Alex Owens said that CCTV footage showed Mansfield Jnr with Martin Byrne before the two men travelled together to Keating Park where Martin Byrne was kidnapped by Duffy and O'Hare.
Mr Justice Owens said that although the "most likely" scenario was that Mansfield Jnr "lured" Martin Byrne to a meeting with O'Hare and Duffy that morning with a view to facilitating his kidnap, the court could not reasonably exclude the possibilities that O'Hare had misled Mansfield Jnr about the purpose of the meeting or that Mansfield Jnr was not privy to the kidnap plot.
O’Hare was jailed for seven years in 2019 for falsely imprisoning Mr Byrne. Duffy was jailed for six years in 2018 for the same offence.
During Mansfield Jnr's sentence hearing, the court heard that until he was taken into custody in mid-January he was living with his mother as her carer.
Defence Counsel Bernard Condon said the offence was on the lower end of the scale, the CCTV footage was never destroyed and no intimidation or threats were made to Patrick Byrne.
He said the father-of-two was of good character and these charges were "hanging" over him for a number of years before coming to trial.
Mr Condon said Mansfield Jnr has dyslexia and had an "unorthodox" education, leaving school before completing any State exams.
He said Mansfield Jnr is a man who is concerned for others and told the three judges that he was involved in the rescue of golfer Christy O'Connor when the helicopter he was in crashed in 1992.
The golfer had been designing a golf course for the Mansfield Group in CityWest Dublin.
Mr Condon handed a newspaper clipping to the judges about the incidence saying his client "went out of his way to assist a man who was in severe difficulties, breaking windows".
Mr Justice Owens suspended the final six months of a two-year sentence after taking a number of mitigating matters into account.
