A 31-year-old man described as an "extremely dangerous individual" has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a young man who was pushing his baby in a buggy in Dublin three years ago.
Jordan Davis, 22, was shot dead while wheeling his four-month-old son in a buggy.
Wayne Cooney, from Glenshane Drive in Tallaght, had pleaded not guilty to the murder at a laneway in Darndale in north Dublin on 22 May 2019 but was convicted by a jury earlier this week.
In a victim impact statement, Mr Davis' mother Sandra told the court her son was a soft-hearted, gentle giant who was a great dad right up to the day he was taken away from them.
She said she prayed the nightmare endured by their family never happened to anyone else.
The trial heard Cooney had been on a bicycle circling the area in the days and hours leading up to the shooting "like a shark circling its prey".
At around 4pm on 22 May 2019, he fired around eight or nine shots from a semi-automatic pistol, hitting Mr Davis three times.
Prosecuting counsel Bernard Condon said Cooney was connected to a local drug dealer who had threatened to kill Mr Davis over a €70,000 debt.
Text messages sent to the victim from a number linked to the drug dealer read: "I'm on your case mate, it won't be long," and "Soon, very soon, bang bang".
Sentencing Cooney to the mandatory term of life in prison, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said the case was a sad lesson about the dangers of being deeply involved in drugs crime.
He said it was always horrific for a parent to lose a child prematurely but particularly in circumstances such as this.
The judge said Mr Davis may have been involved in illegal activity, but that was to be dealt with by police and the courts in a civilised society, not by "barbarians" running around with firearms and discharging them indiscriminately.
He said Mr Davis had a right to his life, whatever he may have done.
His family and wider society were entitled to the proper investigation and prosecution of what he called a "monstrous outrage".
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
The judge made reference to what he described as the "grotesque features" of this crime, including threats, planning, surveillance and a callous brutal execution in broad daylight in the presence of young children.
He said Cooney's actions were "astonishingly reckless" and it was simply "happenstance" that others were not killed or injured when he repeatedly discharged the gun.
He described Cooney as an extremely dangerous individual and said he trusted the authorities would make sure such danger had well abated before any consideration was given to parole.
Mr Justice Hunt also criticised what he called "spurious legal argument" aimed at keeping incriminating evidence from the jury, but he said the jurors had the good sense to see through the fog.
The judge said every criminal trial featuring CCTV footage was bedevilled by the most spurious arguments ever devised by man or beast in relation to privacy.
He said citizens were brought to court and asked silly, inane questions but the provenance of the CCTV footage was rarely questioned.
He described this as a shocking waste of time and money in trial after trial.
Privacy rights had nothing to do with the investigation and prosecution of serious crimes, he said, and it was long overdue that the higher courts should put these arguments to bed.
Defence counsel, Giollaiosa Ó Lidheadha said the arguments were made by conscientious counsel based on properly adduced evidence and supported by judgments from the Supreme Court and European Courts.
Judge Hunt accepted the arguments were made conscientiously but he repeated that they were spurious.
The prosecution relied in part on mobile phone evidence that showed Cooney's phone was calling the drug dealer at moments when the person identified on CCTV as the gunman could be seen holding a phone to his ear.
This was the first trial in which the use of mobile phone evidence was contested following a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which found that Ireland's system of retaining and accessing mobile phone data was a breach of privacy rights.
Mr Justice Hunt allowed the mobile phone evidence.
He said that the "weighty public interest and common good associated with the need to properly investigate this murder comprehensively outweighed any limited privacy rights attaching to the data".
