BUSTED | 

Innocent associates of teen killer targeted after he is caught with drugs in prison

Gangland criminal issues death threats and cash demands

Sun 9 Apr 2023 at 11:51 UP DATED BY FRED BASSETT, JULY 2023.

One of Ireland’s most notorious gangland criminals has been issuing threats and cash demands to innocent associates of a prisoner he is blaming for losing his drugs, the Sunday World can reveal.

Convicted murderer Christopher Dunne (36) from Kilbarrack on the capital’s northside was busted with drugs on two occasions in Mountjoy Prison in February when he returned to the jail after hospital appointments.

While the first seizure has been described by jail insiders as “minor in nature”, the second time that he was caught by prison officers, he had what is described as “a large amount of pills and other illicit substances” when his cell was searched two days after that hospital visit.

It is suspected that on both occasions, Dunne may have obtained drugs when he was out of the jail at his medical appointments.

It has now emerged that a notorious northside Dublin criminal who is also a convicted murderer claims that he is out of pocket because of the drugs bust and is demanding a significant cash sum from associates of Dunne on the outside, according to jail insiders.

This gangster cannot be named because he is facing serious charges before the courts but before he was locked up he was a main player in a bitter Coolock feud that claimed five lives.

“He would be considered a very dangerous and volatile criminal and demanding money from innocent people is certainly nothing new to him,” a source said.

“Christopher Dunne would be considered a vulnerable type of prisoner in many ways and definitely not in the same league as this individual,” the source added.

Dunne has spent more of his life in jail than outside of it, after being convicted of stabbing schoolboy Alan Higgins to death in an unprovoked attack outside the UCI cinema complex in Coolock in October, 2002.

Dunne was aged only 15 when he committed the high-profile murder and was aged 17 when he was handed a life sentence at the Central Criminal Court.

“There were some problems with him when he was younger within the jail system but everything was going well until he was caught with the drugs and he has been disciplined for this.

“The gardai are also going to be investigating this — it was a significant amount of drugs,” a jail insider said.

Strangely, despite the cash demands to his associates, it has emerged that there is “no intelligence” of any active threat on Dunne inside Mountjoy Prison and he is not on any restrictive protective regime.

A spokesman for the Irish Prison Service (IPS) said they do not comment on individual prisoners when contacted about the issue.

Dunne’s murder case in 2004 heard that he was “disadvantaged by a lack of academic ability” but the presiding judge said that this did not stop him from leading events on the tragic night in question.

During the 10-day trial, the jury heard that Mr Higgins had just kissed his girlfriend goodnight when he was set upon by Dunne, Michael Maher and Anthony Whelan.

Dunne stabbed Mr Higgins three times for his mobile phone and wallet outside the UCI complex in Coolock on October 13, 2002.

The then State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, told the court that Mr Higgins died from haemorraging and shock due to a stab wound to the chest.

Dunne was also found guilty of stealing Mr Higgins’s phone and a sum of cash.

Maher and Whelan pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and to robbing the victim’s mobile phone and cash.

After the stabbing Alan Huiggins stumbled back to the cinema complex, where he was treated by two doctors at the scene.

He was taken to Beaumont Hospital where he died later that morning.

The victim, who had overcome a bout of leukaemia in his childhood, had just finished Transition Year.