Killer of publican fails with his UB40 gig and ski defence
A GLOBETROTTING car thief has been convicted by the Special Criminal Court of murdering the manager of a pub in Dublin more than four years ago.
David Hunter, 41, of Du Cane Road, White City, London, had denied the Kinahan cartel murder of 35-year-old Michael Barr at the Sunset House pub in Dublin’s north inner city on the night of April 25, 2016.
Amongst his defence claims were that a ski-mask found in the getaway car after the hit was dropped in the vehicle by him weeks earlier – and that he had come to Ireland from his native Liverpool on the ferry for a UB40 concert that was already held.
Hunter is the second man to be found guilty of murdering dissident republican Barr. In early 2018, Eamonn Cumberton, 32, of Mountjoy Street, Dublin 7, was also convicted of murdering Tyrone native Barr.
Delivering judgment at the nonjury court yesterday, Judge Alexander Owens, presiding, sitting with Judge Gerard Griffin and Judge David McHugh, said the evidence had been heard in a ‘compelling way’ and that Hunter’s involvement in the murder had been ‘fully proved’.
The judge noted that the murderers had failed to burn out the getaway car, which had been abandoned at Walsh Road in Drumcondra a few minutes after the killing and they had also dropped a burner phone at the getaway scene. He said the major part of a DNA profile taken from a ski-mask recovered from the car during the investigation into the shooting of Barr matched and verified the profile of Hunter. The circumstantial evidence in the case pointed to Hunter’s guilt and the facts taken together had established the father-of-five’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, he said.
Judge Owens said the court rejected Hunter’s ‘implausible’ alibi and said the whole story of how Hunter came to lose his skimask ‘did not have a ring of truth about it’ and there was no doubt that it was put into the getaway car to either use at the murder or in the getaway car.
‘Whether he is an avid skier is neither here nor there,’ he added.
In a voluntary statement to gardaí, Hunter said the ski-mask was his but that he had dropped it in a car driven by another man when he visited Ireland two months before the murder on a car-stealing exercise.
The evidence pointed to Hunter being in the rear passenger seat and Cumberton being the driver, the judge said.
Judge Owens said the court did not accept that the purpose of Hunter’s ‘peculiar’ trip to Dublin was for ‘one last fling’ before he checked himself into a rehabilitation centre in Spain.
Hunter further claimed he had come to Ireland from Liverpool on the ferry two days earlier to see a UB40 concert but it had already taken place.
Barr was shot seven times after two armed men wearing boiler suits and full rubber masks over their faces entered the Sunset House pub at around 9pm.
Justice Owens will hand down the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment on November 2. He remanded Hunter in custody until that date.
Speaking after the verdict yesterday, the father of Michael Barr said it was a ‘good day for us as a family’ and the verdict gave them ‘some satisfaction’ that Hunter ‘was going behind bars’.
Colin Barr said Hunter had been ‘found guilty for all his lies’. ‘He thought he could come from Liverpool and murder somebody and skip back to Spain. Michael’s son is here, his heart is broken. These boys need to know there are consequences for taking someone’s life, that they will have to pay a price,’ he added.
Claimed he came for concert