Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
GANGSTERS PAID TO KILL MY SON
Family speak out as gunman jailed for murdering dad
THE family of a Tyrone man shot dead in a criminal feud last night slammed the gang chiefs who ordered and paid for the murder.
Michael Barr’s father Colin accused the Kinahan cartel of f inancing th e 35-year -ol d ’s killing in Dublin’s Sunset House pub in April 2016. His sister Noeleen asked how they could measure his life “in drugs and money”. She said the dad of five died “on the orders of others who pay fools to murder”.
They spoke out after hired assassin David Hunter, 42, was given a life sentence yesterday.
He was one of two gunmen who shot Mr Barr seven times.
A CAR thief was jailed for life yesterday for murdering a man on the orders of the Kinahan mob.
David Hunter, 42, denied he shot 35-year-old Michael Barr, from Co Tyrone, at a pub in Dublin’s north inner city in April 2016.
He was hit seven times after two masked men wearing boiler suits opened fire at the Sunset House pub.
Mr Barr’s sister Noeleen said his five children would have to live with the trauma of knowing how their father was gunned “on the orders of others who pay fools to murder human beings”.
She asked how a life could be “measured in drugs or money”.
Hunter, who was characterised as a “two-bit car thief ” by his own defence team, claimed he was in Dublin to see a UB40 concert and for “one last fling” before he checked into a rehabilitation centre in Spain.
The non-jury Special Criminal Court in Dublin heard DNA from a ski-mask recovered from the getaway car matched the killer.
Hunter admitted to owning the mask but the court rejected his story that he had dropped it when visiting Ireland two months before.
Hunter, of White City in London is the second man to be found guilty of murdering the dissident republican. In January 2018, 32-year-old Eamon Cumberton was also convicted.
At yesterday’s sentencing hearing Det Garda Colm Kelly told prosecutor Dominic Mcginn that Hunter has 15 previous convictions including actual bodily harm, possession of a knife and dangerous driving.
Mr Justice Alexander Owens, presiding, sitting with Judge Gerard Griffin and Judge David Mchugh, backdated the life sentence to April 2019, when he was first arrested on a European Arrest Warrant in the UK.
Outside court, Det Supt Colm Murphy said: “I welcome today ’s conviction. This was a cold, callous murder conducted on an individual going about his business.
“At thi s time, we remember Michael’s family, his partner and his children. This is the third conviction in relation to this murder but the investigation remains ongoing.”
IMMORAL
In a victim i mpact statement read by Mr Mcginn, Mr Barr’s sister Noeleen said: “On April 25, 2016, Michael’s life was brutally taken.
“Not only was his life taken but the lives of his five children, grandmother, mother, father, sisters and only brother’s lives changed forever.”
She added how news of the killing spread on social media, which was the “disturbing, immoral and totally undignified way” the family found out.
Noeleen said: “To even try to explain to his children is unimaginable. Then, to have to wait eight days for his body to return home is souldestroying.
“Then, to tell my grandmother her grandson was murdered will haunt me for the rest of my life. My then
We are broken. Now all we have are memories NOELEEN BARR STATEMENT YESTERDAY
12-year-old son found me in pieces on the floor making sounds I never even knew were possible – that will haunt me forever.
“To see the raw pain etched on my parents’ faces will haunt me forever. To hear Michael’s little boy asking if his daddy will ever wake up will haunt me forever. To see his son getting amazing results in his exams and not being able to share that pride with his dad will haunt me forever.
“I hope and pray no other family will have to live through this torment.
“It is hard enough to lose a family member in normal circumstances but to have to watch your brother’s body being removed from a murder scene in a red bag from where he worked and was loved is mental torture because those images are forever accessible online.”
Noeleen described her brother as “a loveable rogue, who was very charismatic and a good friend to many”.
She said :“We are broken and distraught. Not a day goes by when we don’t think or speak about him. Our life sentence began on April 25, 2016, and now all we have are memories and broken hearts. In her victim impact statement, also read by Mr Mcginn, Mr Barr’s former partner Jade O’shea said their six year-old daughter constantly asks for her father.
She added: “It hurts me so much to tell her what happened to him. She needs to know the truth that we will spend the rest of our lives without him. We will never get him back.
“Michael was also like a father to my two other children and they, too, will see a future without him.”