Biker gets life sentence for rival’s murder
A BIKER was sentenced to life imprisonment yesterday for murdering a member of a rival motorcycle club in a territorial dispute.
The dead man’s family said the deceased is a ‘hero’ who will never be forgotten.
Alan ‘Cookie’ McNamara, a 51year-old from Mountfune, Murroe, Co. Limerick, was found guilty last July of the murder of Andrew ‘AOD’ O’Donoghue at the gates of the Road Tramps motorcycle club at Mountfune on June 20, 2015.
McNamara’s stepson, Robert Cusack, 28, of Abington, Murroe, who pleaded guilty to impeding his stepfather’s apprehension, was sentenced to six years in prison with 18 months suspended.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott said the maximum sentence would be ten years and that he felt Cusack’s crime, of taking the murder weapon and hiding it, was at the higher level. He suspended the final 18 months for two years on condition he commit no further crime, saying that it is necessary to balance punishment with rehabilitation.
During the sentencing hearing, prosecuting counsel Michael Delaney SC read out a statement written by members of the deceased man’s family, who described him as a great father and the person you would go to for advice. The statement concluded: ‘He is our hero and he will never be forgotten.’
Sergeant Ted Riordan told Mr Delaney that McNamara had been a member of the Road Tramps biker group some years earlier but left and in 2015 joined the Caballeros. There was tension between the two clubs, which flared when McNamara was seen in a pub in an area considered to be Road Tramp territory.
Three members of the Road Tramps confronted McNamara, punching him and taking the waistcoat with a Caballeros patch sewn into it. The following day, McNamara received a call from his stepson, Robert Cusack, who told him he was in a car following a member of the Road Tramps, Séamus Duggan, along the roads near Mountfune. Mr Duggan was driving to the Road Tramps clubhouse.
McNamara, meanwhile, loaded a shotgun, got in his car and drove to the Road Tramps’ clubhouse. When he arrived he saw Mr O’Donoghue. He later told gardaí he thought the deceased was holding a gun, so he shot him. Sgt Riordan agreed that following the shooting Cusack told gardaí he took the gun from his stepfather and hid it in some pine trees. Gardaí found it as it had been described Mr Cusack.
The hearing was told that McNamara had 11 previous convictions, one of which was for assault. He was also convicted under the Misuse of Drugs Act at Limerick District Court for which he was given a six-month suspended sentence. His other convictions were for road traffic offences.
Judge McDermott imposed a life sentence on McNamara, backdating it to December 1, 2015.