A State first as man convicted of supplying phone in hit

A DUBLIN man has become the first person in the State to be convicted of assisting a criminal organisation after supplying the mobile phone used in a bar manager’s murder.

Martin Aylmer was caught after the gunman dropped the phone beside the getaway car after shooting Michael Barr, manager of the Sunset House in Dublin’s north inner city. Mr Barr was shot seven times in front of customers two years ago, as part of the Kinahan-Hutch gang feud.

Aylmer, 31, pleaded guilty at the Special Criminal Court in July to facilitating a serious offence by a criminal organisation or any of its members – the first time a person has been prosecuted for this offence since it was introduced in 2006.

At yesterday’s sentence hearing, Detective Garda David Chapman said that at around 9.30pm on April 25, 2016, two masked men entered the pub. One shot Mr Barr seven times while the other stood at the door.

They fled in an Audi A6 which was driven by another man. CCTV footage was able to track this car to Walsh Road in Drumcondra, Dublin 9, where an attempt was made to set fire to it. Gardaí arrived very soon afterwards and extinguished the fire before it had taken hold. Officers found firearms and a round from one of the guns which matched the weapon that killed Mr Barr.

Detectives also found a phone beside the getaway car and discovered that a number of calls had been made to it. It had been purchased two days previously in Dublin’s Ilac Shopping Centre by a man who arrived in a car registered to Aylmer, of Casino Park, Marino, Dublin 3. CCTV helped identify Aylmer.

Eamonn Cumberton, 30, of Mountjoy Street, Dublin 7, was jailed for life by the Special Criminal Court in January after being found guilty of the murder of Mr Barr.

Judge Tony Hunt, presiding, sitting with Judge Sinéad Ní Chulacháin and Judge Cormac Dunne, remanded Aylmer in custody until October 15, when he will be sentenced.