A cold-blooded killer who “executed” a grandfather “without mercy”, shooting him repeatedly when he answered the front door at his mother’s home, shouted: “F**k you and your fair trial” and stormed out of the dock after a jury convicted him of murder.
The jury of six men and six women deliberated for eight hours and 20 minutes before returning the unanimous verdict on Tuesday against Cailean Crawford (28), who had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Thomas McCarthy (55) on July 27th, 2020 at Croftwood Park, Ballyfermot, Dublin 10.
Crawford is already serving a jail sentence for conspiring to murder gangland criminal Wayne Whelan, who survived a September 2019 murder attempt but was subsequently shot dead following another attack two months later.
Mr McCarthy’s partner, Nia O’Reilly, wept and shouted: “You murdering rat. Weasel. Pig,” at Crawford as he left the court. After proceedings concluded, Ms O'Reilly apologised to the court for her earlier outburst.
The jury agreed with the State’s case that Crawford was the assassin who fired several times, fatally injuring Mr McCarthy, having come to the scene in a blue Ford Fiesta car which was seen driving in and out of the area on CCTV.
Following Crawford’s outburst, Mr Justice Tony Hunt commented: “The mask slips I suppose members of the jury…He hasn’t even the courage to stay here and listen because he knows what I’m going to say in a moment.”
After the verdict was returned, Mr Justice Hunt thanked the panel for their hard work and diligence and told them they should have “no regrets” and “no remorse” about the verdict they had reached when they look back at the case.
Referring to Crawford, the judge said: “He’s not an unlucky man whose only crime was to lend a phone and a van to another man. He’s not a victim of circumstance. He is, in fact, a very dangerous individual.”
He told the jury that as a result of their verdict, “the good people of Ballyfermot," whom they had heard Crawford “slur” in the witness box, will be able to “live free of him for some time”.
He said what was needed to perpetrate a crime like this one was “someone cold-blooded," someone who is “a shell of a human being” and who “doesn’t have any emotions”.
“The amount of people who would be prepared to do something like this are in short supply,” said the judge.
Mr McCarthy, who had five children and two grandchildren, was living in the UK at the time and had returned home to visit his family and his mother, who lived at the address in Ballyfermot.
Prosecuting counsel Bernard Condon SC had told the trial there was “undoubtedly more than one person involved” in a “conspiracy” over the murder.
He said the State’s case was that Crawford was the gunman who repeatedly shot Mr McCarthy “quite viciously and without mercy”.
Charles McClean defence case rejected
The 12 jurors rejected the defence case that Crawford, last of Clifden Terrace, Ballyfermot, was involved in drug dealing and had loaned a phone and a GoVan he had hired on the morning of the killing to associate Charles McClean.
McClean (35) was described earlier this year by a Central Criminal Court judge as a "remorseless" criminal, after he sentenced him for calling Mark 'Guinea Pig' Desmond to a drugs meeting in a Dublin park, where the gangland figure was gunned down.
McClean, who was already serving consecutive sentences of 16.5-years for facilitating the murder of Thomas McCarthy and conspiring to murder Wayne Whelan, was jailed for an additional three-and-a-half years for impeding the apprehension of the person who murdered Mr Desmond.
The State had argued that Crawford was the person who was driving the GoVan and that he was also the driver of the blue Ford Fiesta which was seen moving in and out of the area on CCTV.
Mr Condon said it was the prosecution case that a group of people were involved in planning and carrying out the murder of Mr McCarthy, with a number of cars used which were purchased using false names.
He said that movements of the accused’s van and other vehicles involved, including a black Mercedes, a Skoda, a Ford Fiesta, and a Toyota Avensis, showed “dry runs” being carried out in the days before the murder.
Crawford took the stand during his trial and told the jury that he was being “blamed” as the “centre point” of a murder he didn’t commit after he loaned the van to McClean. He said he had handed the van over to a man with “bones sticking out of his face” who was a “mate” of McClean’s.
Crawford said he assumed McClean “needed the van to collect drugs”. He said McClean had previously given him a Lyca SIM card to use after Crawford agreed to collect and transport drugs on “two or three” occasions in the Ballyfermot area.
"A tissue of lies"
In his closing address, Mr Condon said the jury had been presented with “a tissue of lies”.
He said Mr Crawford’s evidence was “full of untruths and equivocations and dishonesty” and described the accused’s claim that the movements of his van were due to drug dealing as “absurd”.
Mr Condon said that Mr McCarthy was shot seven times, meaning “he never had a chance in that style of execution” and died in his mother’s hallway. Some of the cars were later found burnt out, with a 9mm semi-automatic weapon retrieved from the Fiesta.
In his closing speech, Mark Lynham SC, for Crawford, said it was the defence’s case that the accused was involved in drug dealing.
“You’ve heard nothing to disprove that. There's nothing in his movements to connect him to this plot,” said Mr Lynam.
“So yes, at a minimum, he is involved in criminality – but being a criminal doesn’t mean you’re a murderer,” he said.
Counsel reminded the panel that an eyewitness had given a description of the person suspected of being the killer as being six-foot tall, “not young, possibly late 30s, very skinny” and “junkie-looking”, with a black tooth or tooth missing. He said that the accused did not match this description.
After the jury returned their guilty verdict, Mr Justice Hunt told the panel he could now fill them in on a few things and comment on some matters which he had not made comment on after the closing of the case.
The judge said the suggestion that it might be a junkie who had committed the murder was presumably based on the single piece of eyewitness evidence heard.
He said from his experience, most addicts are “victims of circumstance in a way that this man isn’t a victim of circumstance”.
They may commit crimes, he said, but they do so mostly out of “desperation” and a response to “immediate need”.
“What most of them don’t do however, members of the jury, is turn to cold blooded murder,” he said. “The crime that was committed in this case would not, I think, be entrusted to a junkie because it’s more likely to be botched by someone in withdrawal or under the influence of drugs.”
He said sometimes “junkies” might be asked to do something peripheral, like hand over a gun before a murder.
He told the jury that they had been presented with “a limited version of the truth” and had decided the case “on the evidence that you have”.
"The tale," told by Mr Justice Hunt
Mr Justice Hunt said the panel had been told not to conduct any research during the case. “I’m sure the first thing most of you will do when you go home is consult Mr Google.” He said he would save them the trouble by telling them “the tale”.
The judge said in September 2019, there had been an attempted murder in Lucan, County Dublin [Wayne Whelan].
Again in an “uncanny co-incidence”, the judge said, three getaway cars were used which was “perhaps somewhat similar to what was used in this case”.
He said the three cars were burned out and a fourth was intercepted by the gardaí.
“In any event, the fourth car was stopped. Who was in it? No prizes for guessing. Mr McClean and Mr Crawford,” said the judge.
Mr Justice Hunt told the jury Crawford was charged with attempted murder but pleaded guilty to lesser offences.
In September 2021, Crawford was sentenced to seven years with the final two suspended having pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder father-of-three Wayne Whelan at Griffeen Glen Park, Lucan, between May 15th and November 15th, 2019.
Charles McClean, last of St Mark’s Drive, Clondalkin, was sentenced to eight years.
“So what happened less than a year later was no accident and you needn’t worry when you are looking back on this case,” he told the jury.
“There’s no accident, no bad luck about this.”
He told the jurors that McClean is serving a “very long sentence for a combined total of three escapades”.
Mr Justice Hunt exempted the panel from jury service for a period of 20 years.
He remanded Crawford in custody to December 20th when he will be handed the mandatory sentence for murder of life imprisonment.
Under cross examination whilst giving evidence in his own defence, Crawford had denied a suggestion by prosecuting counsel that he was trying to “mislead” the jury because he was in “cahoots” with Charles McClean.
Crawford maintained the van had been collected at around 9:30am on the morning of the murder and that he then went to his grandmother's house where he had food, a shower and changed his clothes. He said he left his grandmother’s house at around 11.30am to go and collect the van.
Mr Condon suggested that Crawford had not previously admitted to gardaí that the van had been involved in drug dealing because he was “now inventing this detail”.
Crawford said he had been afraid of being “branded a rat” for speaking to the gardaí, as he knew the danger he would be in.
“If I don’t explain my side of the story now, I’ll never get a chance to do it. I’ll be branded a rat, but I’m willing to do that rather than being convicted of a murder I didn’t do,” Crawford said.
