‘New IRA’ leader gets life for gun murder of father-of-three
THE leader of the so-called New IRA in Dublin was yesterday jailed for life for the murder of another dissident republican almost six years ago.
Kevin Braney, 44, was found guilty by the Special Criminal Court last Monday of the ‘premeditated’ murder of father-of-three Peter Butterly, 35.
Mr Butterly was chased and shot dead outside The Huntsman Inn, Gormanston, Co. Meath in view of students waiting for their school bus on the afternoon of March 6, 2013, in what the three-judge court said was not ‘a spontaneous act’.
Mr Butterly died from gunshot wounds to his neck and back.
Braney had pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Butterly.
Delivering judgment last Monday at the non-jury court following an 11-week trial which ended in December, Mr Justice Paul Coffey, presiding, said the court was driven ‘irresistibly’ to the conclusion that Braney was involved in the organisation and planning of Mr Butterly’s murder beyond reasonable doubt.
In his opening address on October 4 last, prosecuting counsel Paul O’Higgins SC told the court that Braney ‘is said in effect to have been the man who gave the orders... and is shown to have had an extensive involvement’.
Braney had denied membership of an unlawful organisation, styling itself the Irish Republican Army, on August 2, 2017.
An impact statement was read to the non-jury court by the victim’s wife, Eithne Butterly, during Braney’s sentence hearing yesterday morning.
Ms Butterly took the stand and said: ‘Kevin Braney, you have no concept, nor do you really care how we feel but I am going to tell you regardless.
‘Peter was an excellent, loving and proud father to our three children and their lives – without him to protect and nurture them – have been horrific to say the least.’
Ms Butterly said her son was just six years old when she had to tell him that his father would never come home. ‘His scream is a scream that I will never forget and still haunts me to this day,’ she said. ‘He was only a baby.’
Mr Justice Coffey, presiding, sitting with Judge Martin Nolan and Judge James Faughnan, sentenced Braney, of Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght, Dublin 24, to the mandatory term of life imprisonment, backdated to September 14, 2017.
Prosecuting counsel Caroline Cummings BL Ms Cummings asked the court that a nolle prosequi be entered on the outstanding count of membership.
Edward McGrath, 37, of Land Dale Lawns, Springfield, Tallaght; Sharif Kelly, 49, of Pinewood Green Road, Balbriggan, and Dean Evans, 27, of Grange Park Rise, Raheny, Dublin, have all received life sentences after they were convicted of Mr Butterly’s murder.