Man jailed for role played in the ‘cold-blooded’ shooting of ‘big friendly giant’

Thomas Farnan was shot dead at his home

March 30 2022 08:16 PM

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A 25-year-old man who has spent a quarter of his life in custody was jailed todayfor two-and-a-half years for his role in a “cold-blooded assassination” of a “big friendly giant”.

Lorcan Merriman (25), of Lealand Close, Clondalkin, Dublin, pleaded guilty last year at the Central Criminal Court to disposing of the gun used to murder Thomas Farnan (37) on April 25, 2016.

Mr Farnan suffered nine gunshot wounds when he was shot six times in front of his partner, Elaine Heffernan, as he opened his door at Kilcronan Close, Clondalkin, Dublin, at 11pm, while on the phone to his mother.

Merriman – who is currently serving five years for possession of a firearm – had been on trial for Mr Farnan’s murder but the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) dropped the charge after the accused offered to plead guilty to preventing the apprehension of the murderer by disposing of the murder weapon, which has not been found.

Sentencing Merriman to four years’ imprisonment with the final 18 months suspended, Mr Justice David Keane said the killing had been a “cold-blooded assassination” and Merriman’s involvement in it arose out of “serious criminality” rather than the accused’s personal circumstances.

The fact that the gunman has yet to be caught meant that Merriman has successfully impeded the killer’s apprehension and prosecution for six years, Mr Justice Keane added.

The judge also noted that Merriman has never shown any “remorse or contrition” for his crime.

But Mr Justice Keane also acknowledged that the accused – who had been a promising soccer player in his youth before drifting into drug use and criminality around the time his parents separated – was now trying to turn his life around.

Merriman’s efforts towards rehabilitation were reflected in the fact that he was now regarded as an enhanced prisoner with special duties, the judge noted.

Pointing to a urine analysis which showed Merriman has been drug free since the beginning of the year, Mr Justice Keane said: “There is a strong suggestion that 2020 was a turning point [for the accused], which I accept.”

But the judge also said the offence the accused was guilty of was punishable according to the gravity of the crime the other person had committed.

In this case, as the other offence had been murder, the maximum penalty available to the court was 10 years’ imprisonment, the judge said.

As he considered Merriman’s offending to be in the “middle of the upper range”, Mr Justice Keane said an appropriate headline sentence would be eight years.

He said he would discount this term by a total of four years to not only reflect the fact that the accused was already serving a custodial sentence, but to also give him credit for his guilty plea which, the judge said, had freed garda and court personnel from attending what could have otherwise been a lengthy trial.

He said he would suspend the final 18 months to incentivise Merriman towards further rehabilitation and the sentence would begin when Merriman’s current five-year jail term, which was imposed in 2018, ends.

Mr Justice Keane also expressed the court’s condolences to the family of Mr Farnan.

Mr Farnan’s mother, Ivona Shortt, said at an earlier hearing on March 16 that her son’s “brutal” murder would haunt her family forever.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, Ms Shortt described her son as a “big friendly giant” who was loved for his quick wit, kindness and generosity.

Describing the fatal shooting as an “act of brutality that we could never imagine”, she revealed she has spent years wondering who killed her son and why. She said she feared the killer might be in her community, maybe even standing next to her in the local shop.

“Tom is a statistic to many but he is not a statistic to me; he is my son, my child who I brought lovingly into this world as an innocent life,” she said. “The way he died will haunt us forever.”

Speaking outside court, Ms Shortt recalled that she was speaking to her son on the phone when he asked her to “hang on mam, there’s someone at the door”. When she didn’t hear from him again she presumed he had forgotten about her and she went to bed.

“Tom was so funny, he was a big chap and so funny and had the funniest laugh. He loved life and he had two little dogs, Marley and Missy, and he brought them everywhere with him. He was so kind and really, really good-natured,” she added.

Making sense of his killing was “the hardest part” she said, describing it as a “senseless act that should never have happened”.

In court, Detective Superintendent Colm O’Malley told Roisin Lacey SC, for the DPP, that Mr Farnan was shot dead at 11.20pm as he answered a knock at the front door of the ground floor apartment he shared with his partner.

The shooter fired six shots at Mr Farnan, hitting him five times and causing nine injuries including the fatal injury to his chest. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Neighbours said they saw a man running towards a walkway along the Royal Canal with a gun in his hand moments after hearing the series of gun blasts.

Det Sgt O’Malley said Merriman became a person of interest in the investigation and gardai searched his home.

Forensic investigators found gunshot residue on the clothes that matched residue from the discharged cartridges found at the scene.

Following a further search of the home in May 2016, gardai discovered a sub-machine gun and 25 rounds of ammunition hidden in the attic. Det Sgt O’Malley said the sub-machine gun was not the gun used to shoot Mr Farnan. Merriman was sentenced in 2018 to five years in prison for possession of the firearm in suspicious circumstances. He is still serving that sentence.

Sgt O’Malley said Merriman had been an accomplished footballer, playing with Peamount United in his early teens, but he drifted away and “became involved with individuals in Clondalkin”. Merriman started committing petty crimes and moved on to more serious crime after becoming involved with a criminal gang, the sergeant said.

Merriman’s previous convictions included theft, burglary, robbery, possession of knives, criminal damage, breach of the peace, intoxication in public and possession of drugs for sale or supply, the detective said.

Fiona Murphy SC, for Merriman, told the court that her client pleaded guilty as soon as it was clear that the DPP would accept the lesser charge. She said that her client’s offending was linked to his drug use but in prison, urinalysis shows he is drug free since January of this year.

She said he has spent almost one quarter of his life in custody but in 2020 he reached a turning point in his life. She said he is an enhanced prisoner with special duties and is considered by staff to be a model prisoner.

He has undertaken numerous courses while in prison. She said he went “off the rails” in his teens after his parents separated and is “paying for it dearly having been in custody for the last six years”.