A man has been handed a five-year suspended prison sentence for providing his son, who assisted in the murder of Wayne Whelan, with a false alibi.
Mark Casserly (49) told gardaí investigating the fatal shooting of Mr Whelan (42) on November 18th, 2019, that his son, Anthony Casserly, was at home at the time of the murder. Anthony Casserly and Wayne Whelan were friends at the time.
Anthony Casserly (26), of Rowlagh Park, Clondalkin, was sentenced in January 2022 to seven years in prison for assisting in the murder of Mr Whelan.
Mr Whelan was in the front of a car at Mount Andrew Rise in Lucan, Co Dublin, when a gunman, who had been sitting in the back-seat, shot him at least three times in the back of the head.
The car was set on fire, and Mr Whelan’s remains were later found in the passenger seat. He was so badly burned that he had to be identified using DNA analysis.
Mark Casserly, also of Rowlagh Park, Clondalkin, pleaded guilty before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to giving a false account of the movement of a suspect during the murder investigation in December 2019.
Obligation
Imposing sentence Judge Pauline Codd said it is the “obligation of every citizen to assist” gardaí in an investigation. She noted that Mark Casserly had “motivation to seek to assist his son”; however, his actions were in the “wrong manner and serious in the context of the crime under investigation”.
Judge Codd said Mark Casserly “ought to have stood up and done the proper thing by assisting the gardaí,” but instead, he perverted the course of justice.
She handed him a five-year prison sentence suspended in full on strict conditions.
Detective Garda Marcus Roantree told Maddie Grant BL, prosecuting, that Mark Casserly gave two separate statements to gardaí in which he said his son Anthony was at home on November 18th, 2019, between the hours of 7pm and 9pm.
Mark Casserly made a statement on December 5th, 2019, in which he said he was at home watching a football match, and his son was also at home. His son was living with his partner, Lacey O'Connor (31), in a converted shed at the back of the family property at that time.
In a second statement on December 12th, Mark Casserly told gardaí that his son was in and out of the house. He also said the family ordered a takeaway, which his son paid for and then took to the shed.
Mark Casserly told gardaí that his son would have had to walk past him and through the house to leave.
Mark Casserly gave his phone number and a number for his son to gardaí. Analysis showed he had called another number associated with his son, but the defendant said he did not recognise this number.
CCTV
CCTV from the area was analysed as part of the murder investigation and contradicted Mark Casserly's statement, as footage showed his son leaving the family home in a VW Golf during the relevant time period.
The defendant was arrested in February 2020 and interviewed four times, but nothing of evidential value was obtained.
Mark Casserly has a number of previous convictions, including two for false imprisonment and one for aggravated burglary. He has not come to garda attention since this incident.
The court heard Anthony Casserly was initially charged with murder but pleaded guilty during the trial to a lesser charge, being an offence under Section 72 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006, that he facilitated the murder.
Det Gda Roantree agreed with Seamus Clarke SC, defending, that Anthony Casserly's partner gave a statement to gardaí on November 19th, and his client's statements appeared to be backing hers up.
It was further agreed that his client's guilty plea was of assistance to the prosecution.
Mr Clarke noted that O’Connor first gave a statement with a “false narrative” before his client made his two statements to gardaí. He said his client made an “attempt to help his son” rather than assisting gardaí with their investigation.
His client has three children and one grandchild, for whom he has taken on the role of father figure while his son is in custody.
Mark Casserly has a number of health issues and is not currently working due to an injury sustained in a workplace accident. A number of documents were handed to the court on his behalf.
Judge Pauline Codd said it is an aggravating feature of the case that Mark Casserly was “motivated” to give a misleading and false account to gardai in order to assist his son.
She said the court accepts that O’Connor gave a “false alibi” to gardaí first, and there “may be an element of support for her false alibi” in the defendant's actions.
Judge Codd commended gardai for untangling the false statement given by Mark Casserly during the investigation.
O'Connor, also of Rowlagh Park, Clondalkin, was handed an 18-month prison sentence suspended for four years in June 2022 at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court after pleading guilty to giving a false account of the movement of a suspect during the murder investigation in November 2019.
