{"id":103041,"date":"2025-10-04T17:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T17:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/103041\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T17:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T17:39:07","slug":"couple-allegedly-hunted-down-by-drug-dealers-who-took-over-their-home-court-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/103041\/","title":{"rendered":"Couple allegedly \u2018hunted down\u2019 by drug dealers who took over their home, court hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Three men \u201chunted down\u201d a couple forced out of their home when it was taken over for crack cocaine dealing and beat the man with a baseball bat in a car, it has been alleged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">The three from Ballymun in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin\/\">Dublin<\/a> \u2013 <b> <\/b>Lee Kelly (23) of Marewood Crescent, and brothers Jason Murphy (20) and Dylan Murphy (23), both of Dolmen Court \u2013 were charged with two counts of assault causing harm to the man and woman, and false imprisonment of the couple on various dates earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">In their case, part of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/garda-siochana\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/garda-siochana\/\">An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na<\/a>\u2019s Operation F\u00f3gra, they faced lengthy contested bail hearings before Judge Treasa Kelly at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin-district-court\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin-district-court\/\">Dublin District Court<\/a> on Friday evening, and have been remanded in custody.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She refused bail after noting garda objections, which included witness interference concerns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The trio, who have yet to indicate pleas, were remanded in custody to appear at Cloverhill District Court on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Garda Shane Kennedy, Colm Broderick and Ciaran Lowe alleged they were involved in the supply of drugs from a Ballymun couple\u2019s home of 20 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The judge heard claims that the couple were forced to leave and became homeless earlier this year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In evidence in respect of the case against Lee Kelly, Gda Kennedy alleged the complainant\u2019s home had been \u201ctaken over\u201d some time in 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">While abandoning their house, they sent their children to live with relatives and began living out of a tent near the Rotunda Hospital in the city centre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">It was alleged that on April 18th last, the defendants made significant efforts and tracked them down while they were sleeping rough. Garda\u00ed said in court that they were dragged from their tent and taken to the Garden of Remembrance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The court heard the woman managed to escape but her partner was reported to have been put in a car by the defendants, driven away and beaten with a baseball bat in the back of the vehicle. The woman was allegedly threatened that she had to pay money.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The bail hearing was told that the man suffered a laceration to his head, a broken nose, shoulder, rib and bones in his hands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">His partner rang emergency services when he was taken, but the recording of the call was not played during the hearing, after the judge declined a request to play the audio.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The court heard garda\u00ed believed Mr Kelly had engaged in some form of drug dealing. A house was searched and a large amount of drugs, weighing scales and bags were found. However, he was not charged with drug offences yet, the court heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Gda Kennedy alleged Mr Kelly\u2019s home had been watched and officers observed \u201chigh activity\u201d of people attending his front garden as early as 6.20am, which his solicitor said could simply have been to have a chat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Jason Murphy, alone, has further charges for possessing \u20ac600 worth of cannabis and having it for the purpose of sale or supply; it was allegedly in small deals and hidden in a bush in north Dublin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Det Sgt Domhnall O\u2019Connell told the court the couple were terrified and could not be forced to come to the bail hearing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Defence barrister Kevin McCrave, for Dylan Murphy, and solicitor Edward Bradbury, who represented the co-defendants, submitted that bail conditions would suffice. They stressed that the defendants had no history of violent offending and enjoyed the presumption of innocence which entitled them to bail.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mr McCrave stated that arrangements can provide facilities for witnesses who fear giving evidence in court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Judge Kelly denied the bail applications. Legal aid was granted. A fourth male, in his 20s, appeared in court on connected charges on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Two men, also in their 20s, remain detained under Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act, 2007, at a Garda station in Dublin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three men \u201chunted down\u201d a couple forced out of their home when it was taken over for crack&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,8301,18,13,14,8030,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-103041","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-dublin-district-court","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-garda-siochana","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}