A "remorseless" criminal who called Mark 'Guinea Pig' Desmond to a drugs meeting in a Dublin park, where the gangland figure was gunned down, will now serve a global jail term of 20 years for his involvement in this and other gangland shootings.
Charles McClean, who is already serving a 16.5-year sentence, was on Friday jailed for an additional three-and-a-half years for impeding the apprehension of the person who murdered Mr Desmond.
No regret
Sentencing McClean at the Central Criminal Court, Mr Justice Paul McDermott said the defendant had shown no regret or remorse for this offence as he had "willingly become involved in similar offending" following this incident.
The judge said McClean was clearly willing to "engage and assist those committing murder".
McClean has already been sentenced to two consecutive sentences totalling 16.5 years imprisonment for facilitating a criminal organisation as well as later conspiring to murder gangster Wayne Whelan. Whelan survived the murder attempt but was subsequently shot dead following another attack in November 2019.
The judge said the seriousness of McClean's offending had "escalated dramatically" from 2016 and that "actual killers and associates" depend on people like him to make sure they go "undetected".
Murders
Mr Justice McDermott said that every murder and attempted murder has a separate victim and involves a family, adding that the fact that McClean had engaged in "three of these types of offences" was a "very unusual feature" of the case.
The court found that McClean's three-and-a-half-year sentence for the impeding offence had to run consecutively to his eight-and-a-half year sentence for facilitation and the eight-year sentence he is presently serving for conspiracy to commit murder.
The Central Criminal Court was told during this week's sentence hearing for 35-year-old McClean that he told gardaí he later got rid of Mr Desmond's phone "at the request of" Wayne Whelan.
The sentence hearing also heard that McClean had a motor business for a number of years, which had been associated with Wayne Whelan.
Charles McClean (35) of St Mark’s Grove, Clondalkin, Dublin 22 was arraigned before the Central Criminal Court last week, when he had been due to go on trial for the murder of 41-year-old Mr Desmond.
McClean pleaded guilty to impeding the apprehension or prosecution of another at Griffeen Valley Park, Lucan, Dublin, on December 2nd 2016, knowing or believing them to be guilty of an arrestable offence, namely the murder of Mr Desmond. The court heard that this was the second count on the indictment.
Mr Desmond, who was 41 when he died after being shot at least three times with a handgun, had links to dissident republicans and the drug trade in west Dublin. Mr Desmond was also charged with the murder of two men in 1999, but these charges were dropped days before he was due to go on trial.
Sentencing
Before delivering the sentence, Mr Justice McDermott said that serious offences had been committed by McClean subsequent to this case.
The judge said that Mr Desmond had been staying in an associate's home in a cul de sac close to a park, where he was later killed, on December 2nd.
He said Mr Desmond had received a phone call from a mobile phone around 7pm and left the house where he was staying to meet the defendant and another man. "The killing was well planned and the assailant was present in the vicinity and armed," he added.
Shortly after the attack, a partly damaged gun and a spent bullet were found beside a burnt-out Mazda in Lucan, said the judge.
Mr Justice McDermott said McClean had been spotted driving a white Ford Focus van on November 26th, which was later found abandoned in Clondalkin. He said the keys belonging to that van had been found in the defendant's apartment.
The judge noted that Mr Desmond had used a particular mobile phone and the investigation had revealed that this phone had travelled in the direction of Clondalkin in the immediate aftermath of the killing.
He said McClean accepted in his garda interviews that he was involved in the removing of the deceased's phone from the house where he was staying and had disposed of it.
Mr Justice McDermott said the defendant was arrested by gardaí on June 13th, 2017 and made several significant confessions. "He admitted he made a call to the deceased for the purpose of discussing other criminality and said it was the deceased's idea to go to the park," added the judge.
The judge said McClean told gardaí he had run to the house where Mr Desmond was staying, where he had removed the deceased's mobile phone.
He said the defendant had also identified himself on CCTV footage as the person running towards that house and made other partial admissions to gardaí.
He said McClean has 20 previous convictions, some of which are for the most serious type of criminal offences. He said the defendant had no regret or remorse as he had willingly become involved in similar offending following this offence.
These convictions include conspiracy to commit murder over the September 2019 attempted murder of Wayne Whelan, for which he received an eight-year sentence.
Previous sentence
Last April at the Central Criminal Court, McClean was jailed for eight-and-a-half years for facilitating a criminal organisation in the unexplained fatal shooting of father-of-five Thomas McCarthy (55), a man who had no links to crime.
Mr McCarthy was gunned down when he answered the door at his mother's house in Ballyfermot on July 27th, 2020. He suffered nine separate gunshot injuries.
The court heard that McClean's other offences include the possession of drugs and convictions for historic matters in the District Court including the juvenile court.
The judge added today that the murder of Mr Desmond was "a well planned one", where the actions included the disposing of a mobile phone. "It is clear there was intent to dispose of relevant evidence," he said.
He said the shooting of Mr Desmond had occurred in a public place and that the defendant had gone back to where the deceased was staying to take his mobile phone. "The entire circumstances of involvement satisfy me of the high level of criminal culpability," he continued.
Having regard to the gravity of the offence, the judge set a headline sentence of seven years for McClean before mitigation.
In mitigation, the court took into account McClean's guilty plea. The judge said the trial would have been lengthy and there was significant benefit to be gained from the plea.
Passing sentence, Mr Justice McDermott said McClean had admitted to certain elements of the offence at the time and provided some assistance to the investigation.
He said the defendant had embarked on numerous courses in custody and came from a family with no connection to crime.
The court found that the appropriate sentence for McClean was five years and six months in prison.
The judge said there were additional issues to be considered, such as whether he should make the sentence consecutive "to those sentences already noted".
He said the fact McClean had engaged in three of these types of offences to date was a "very unusual feature of the case" and therefore he was satisfied "the sentence had to be consecutive to those he is now serving".
The judge said he had to consider the totality principle and if he sentenced McClean to five years and six months in prison along with the two other sentences [eight-and-a-half year sentence for facilitation and the eight-year sentence he is presently serving for conspiracy to commit murder], then that would be a total of 22 years imprisonment.
Mr Justice McDermott said he would suspend the last two years of the five-year and six-month sentence because of the totality principle and due to the fact McClean was making progress in prison.
McClean was today sentenced to five years and six months in prison with the final two years suspended for a period of four years.
The three-and-half-year sentence is to run consecutively to the defendant's other two sentences.
