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8 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 9
Adrin nd Christine Boyle
A
County Meath man who served five
years in jail on drugs oences has
claimed that he is innocent and
wants an inquiry into his
conviction almost fifteen years
ago. Adrian Boyle was arrested in August
2006 along with two men who were also
charged with possession of cocaine with
intent to supply at a garage in Mooneystown,
near Athboy.
A panel beater, from Athboy, County Meath,
Boyle was convicted of serious drug oences
in 2008 although many people, including his
immediate family and friends, are convinced
that he is an innocent man. He claims that he
repaired cars on an almost daily basis in the
garage, with the permission of its owner who
is his wife’s brother-in-law.
Boyle has consistently denied the charges
and explained during his trial, after his ‘not
guilty’ plea, that he was not involved in
handling or supplying the cocaine valued at
€170,000 which was found when gardaí from
the National Drugs Unit raided the property.
Illegally held firearms and stolen goods
were also found in a container behind the
garage although Boyle was not charged in
respect of these items.
Boyle has protested his innocence since his
arrest and release after serving five years of
an eight-year sentence in Wheatfield prison in
Dublin. He told the gardaí and the court that
he had use of the garage on a daily basis with
NEWS
Jailed for being in the
wrong place: Adrian
Boyle claims 15-year-old
conviction unsafe
Village has also established that gardaí did not follow up on alibi or
CCTV evidence which could have confirmed Boyle’s account of his
movements before his arrival in the garage
By Frank Connolly
8 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 9
the permission of Séamus Halpin, whose
family owns the land on which the garage is
located.
In January 2008, Boyle and another man,
Seán Fennessy, who was known to gardaí as
a drug dealer and pleaded guilty, were
convicted.
On the day of the Garda raid on the property
at Mooneystown on 5 August, 2006, Boyle
said that he had just opened the garage’s
roller door when a silver Volkswagen Golf
pulled up. He said he had not been expecting
anyone and had not arranged to meet anyone.
He said Seán Fennessy, whom he knew to
see, got out of the car and told him that
Séamus Halpin had said they could use the
garage. Another man, Paul Reay, from
Drogheda arrived with Fennessy in the Golf.
Boyle, Fennessy and Reay were arrested at
the scene, detained and charged. Séamus
Halpin was also charged, following his arrest
a day after the raid.
The gardaí claimed that Boyle attempted to
escape and that his thumb print was found on
the inside of a bag containing traces of
cocaine which they seized in the garage.
Boyle has described in detail what
happened when Fennessy and Reay arrived at
the shed on Saturday, 5 August, 2006.
“I thought he (Fennessy) was going to do
something with the car because he drove it
directly over the pit”, Boyle told the court
during his trial at Trim Court in January 2008.
Boyle said he continued tidying up and
Fennessy started taking stu out of the car,
including a blender. He said he saw tablets
and knew the men weren’t there to fix the car.
Boyle said that Fennessy was a known drug-
dealer and wasn’t somebody he would want
to cross. He said he didn’t ask him to leave or
ask him what he was doing. He said the roller
door was still open, so he pulled it down, said
he was going and took the keys o the bench
just as armed men in plain clothes arrived.
He said he suddenly heard a lot of shouting
and there was a man at the window pointing a
gun at him. He said he panicked but was
relieved when confronted by a garda who
showed him his badge. He said he had been
in the garage about 10 minutes when the
armed gardaí arrived. He said he had nothing
to do with drugs. He had never been in the
garage with those people before that day and
had never been there when anyone was
packing drugs.
He said he would have seen plastic bags in
the garage before and would have moved
them o the work bench. He had assumed they
belonged to Séamus Halpin and he (Boyle)
would have used some bags from a roll of
freezer bags to freeze pigeons, as he shot
frequently with his own legally held firearm.
During the trial, Garda witnesses said that
cocaine with an estimated street value of
almost €170,000 was recovered from the
garage and the 40-ft container behind it,
along with nine firearms and other goods,
including stolen generators and power tools
worth €50,000 each. Gardaí told the court
that, when they arrived at the premises, they
saw the defendants using blenders to mix
pure cocaine with a glucose bulking agent.
When gardaí raided the building, they said
they saw three men. Two of them were wearing
rubber gloves and had “a few pellets of
cannabis resin” on their persons. Boyle was
not wearing rubber gloves and no drugs were
found on him, the court heard.
Seán Fennessy and Paul Reay admitted
possessing cocaine, valued at €13,000 or
more, for sale or supply, while Séamus Halpin
pleaded guilty to being the occupier of lands
and knowingly permitting the preparation of
a controlled drug on his premises.
Fennessy served several years in prison and
went to England after his release from where
he was extradited back to Ireland in relation
to other oences for which he is still serving
time in jail. Halpin, whose trial was held in
camera, was given a three-year, suspended,
sentence.
Paul Reay was shot dead in Drogheda,
County Louth some weeks after he was
arrested in the garage while he was on bail.
He was on his way to a court hearing in Kells
in connection with the Mooneystown drugs
seizure when he was killed.
According to the book of evidence served
on Adrian Boyle in advance of his trial, there
was nothing to implicate him in drug-dealing
other than the claim that his thumb print was
found inside a plastic bag and that he was
present when the raid took place.
Halpin pleaded guilty to the charges against
him and received a three-year suspended
sentence following the in camera hearing. He
was permitted to continue driving a school
bus after his arrest and conviction, despite the
obvious danger this might have presented to
the children under his care.
Remarkably, Boyle’s home was not raided
by gardaí after his arrest and he continued to
retain his legal firearm until his father handed
it in to the Garda after his conviction.
Village has also established that gardaí did
not follow up on alibi or CCTV evidence which
could have confirmed Boyle’s account of his
movements before his arrival in the garage.
While detained, Adrian Boyle co-operated
fully with the investigating gardaí. He provided
an explanation for his presence at the garage
and described his relationship with Séamus
Halpin.
The book of evidence explains that the
warrant for the raid on the property was
obtained on 20 July, 2006, over two weeks
before the search which was carried out on 5
August, 2006. Thus, it would be safe to
assume that the gardaí had solid information
well in advance of the raid and that they may
have placed the garage under surveillance for
some weeks. (Alternatively, they were able to
access a warrant which was back-dated to
almost three weeks earlier).
If surveillance had been carried out, it could
have potentially verified whether Adrian Boyle
was attending and working in the garage on a
daily basis and had legitimate access to it. It
may be significant that, when gardaí raided
the garage, Adrian Boyle was present with
both Seán Fennessy and Paul Reay while
Halpin was not. Halpin was suspected of
involvement in crime while Fennessy was a
significant target for gardaí investigating
drugs gangs in west Dublin, Meath and Louth.
In his statement to gardaí while in custody
a day after the raid, Boyle described how he
There are people who know
I am innocent and I would
hope some of these will
come forward with evidence
that can help me prove it
10 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 PB
went to the garage at 9.30 a.m. on the morning
of 5 August, 2006. He took a Peugeot 405 car
belonging to Halpin and drove to his home in
Navan. At 12.30 p.m. he went to Kilmessan to
a body shop owned by Eamonn Maguire
where he worked until 4.45 p.m. He then
drove back to Mooneystown to return the car.
Fennessy and Reay arrived soon afterwards
and shortly before the armed gardaí raided
the premises. It appears from the book of
evidence served on Boyle that information he
provided about his movements that day to
prove his innocence was not checked by the
gardai.
The following could have been undertaken
as part of the investigation, according to legal
sources, but were not:
•
CCTV footage located between
Mooneystown and Navan could have been
examined to identify the Peugeot 405;
•
A potential witness, Eamonn Maguire,
could have been interviewed to see if he
corroborated that Adrian Boyle did visit
him, as stated;
•
CCTV footage located between Kilmessan
and Mooneystown could have been
examined to identify the Peugeot 405;
•
The phone records of the three arrested
men should have been tracked to establish
that there was no prior contact between
Boyle and the other two men arrested at the
garage;
• The defence should have requested a copy
of the surveillance log given that it was
suggested to Adrian Boyle by gardaí that he
had met Seán Fennessy and Paul Reay in
the shed five weeks before the raid;
According to the book of evidence, there was
nothing to implicate Boyle in drug-dealing
other than the claim that his thumb print was
found inside a plastic bag and that he was
present when the raid took place
• A substantial amount of illicit cocaine was
found by gardaí in the Peugeot 405, yet
Boyle was not charged in connection with
this. He insisted he never knew the drugs
were in the car which he had driven on the
day.
The book of evidence also raises a series of
other questions about the nature of the Garda
investigation and questioning of Boyle while
he was in detention. Boyle’s wife, Christine,
with whom he had confided about Séamus
Halpin and Seán Fennessy being together in
the shed on a previous occasion, did not make
a statement.
In his interviews with gardaí, Paul Reay
stated that he did not know Adrian Boyle, had
never met him previously and, further, that
half the cocaine found in the garage belonged
to him. He did not refer to a third of the cocaine
being his, which would have indicated that
there were three people involved in the
possession and supply of the drugs.
While on remand in jail, Boyle was initially
wrongly accused by other inmates and
associates of Fennessy of setting up the raid
by informing the Garda about the presence of
illicit drugs in the garage. He was badly beaten
up although Fennessy later told him that he
accepted that Boyle was innocent.
Paul Reay (26) was shot dead near his home
in Drogheda in November 2006 as he travelled
to a court hearing in Kells in relation to his
arrest. A car driven by his sister, Emma Jane
Reay was stopped by a man wearing a yellow
jacket and posing as a construction worker
near his home in Tredagh View, Marley’s Lane,
Drogheda. He was shot in the head while
his sister was seriously injured, during the
attack. Reay was wearing a bullet-proof jacket
after warnings from the Garda that his life was
in danger. Although one man was arrested in
connection with his murder, no one was
charged or convicted.
According to Boyle, Reay told him, while
they were remanded in custody, that he knew
Boyle was innocent and that he would tell the
court as much when he got the opportunity.
Reay also told other witnesses while on
remand in jail that he would tell the court that
Boyle was innocent. Following his death,
newspapers, quoting garda sources, reported
that his killing may have been linked to the
raid at Mooneystown. They suggested that
Reay may have made, or was planning to
make, statements that incriminated others in
relation to the Garda raid on Halpin’s garage
and that this may have contributed to his
murder. Reay also told gardaí, following his
arrest, that he had owed a large amount of
money to drug dealers.
In November, 2010, the Court of Criminal
Appeal (CCA) rejected an application by Boyle
to have his conviction quashed. Boyle had
appealed his conviction on a number a
grounds, including that the trial judge had
erred in law by seeking a verdict from a jury in
respect of the charge. It was also argued there
was not enough evidence to prove that Boyle
had been in possession of the drugs. Boyle
had said during his trial that he was given use
of the premises to work as a panel-beater, and
that he was there on a daily basis.
The Director of Public Prosecutions opposed
the application. Dismissing the appeal against
conviction, the CCA, with Ms Justice Susan
Denham presiding, along with judges, Daniel
Herbert and Frank Clarke, held the trial judge
had not erred in law. The CCA found there were
a number of factors, including that Boyle had
attempted to flee the shed when it was raided,
which taken together entitled the trial judge
to let the case go to the jury. Boyle had argued
that he would not have fled if he had known
the armed men were gardaí.
The circumstances surrounding the death
of Paul Reay and its links to the case have
never been fully investigated.
Adrian Boyle had never previously come to
the attention of the Garda before his arrest in
August 2006.
“I have insisted from day one that I had
nothing to do with the drugs found in the
garage in Mooneystown. A lot of people knew
that I worked there on a daily basis”, he told
Village.
His conviction and imprisonment has taken
a heavy toll on his family life, his work and his
ability to travel. Lawyers have advised that
Adrian Boyle will need to secure new evidence
that was not available before his trial, in order
to establish that he is a victim of a miscarriage
of justice.
“I know it is an uphill battle but I want a
fresh inquiry into the circumstances which led
to my spending five years in jail. I want to clear
my name for my sake and for my family. There
are people who know I am innocent and I
would hope some of these will come forward
with evidence that can help me prove it”, he
said.
Boyle served five yers in Whetfield prison
