EXCLUSIVE | 

Revealed: This is the career criminal stabbed in neck while in Mountjoy protective custody

Crumlin man Dylan Smith was slashed in the neck with a shiv in the exercise yard of Mountjoy

Today at 14:30

This is the low-level criminal left fighting for his life after he was stabbed in the neck while in protective custody in Mountjoy Prison.

Serial offender Dylan Smith, with an address at Captain’s Road in Crumlin, south Dublin, was attacked in the exercise yard in the prison on Monday evening by a fellow inmate who was also in protective custody.

Sources said Smith’s attacker walked straight up to him and, seemingly ‘out of nowhere’, pulled a shiv and stabbed him in the neck.’

“It was quick, efficient and brutal,” the source said.

“There was no dispute of any kind between this inmate and Smith – no prior arguments or disagreements.

“That’s why they were trusted to be in each other’s company.”

The source said it now believed Smith’s attacker was likely paid by a third party to “give Smith a stripe”.

Smith was already on protection as a result of a threat from another faction in the prison.

And prison authorities are now examining whether the order to attack Smith originated from this faction.

“It would be done for something like letting a drug debt slide, a threat being lifted or maybe even €1,000 being thrown to someone on the outside.”

In the aftermath of the attack, 31-year-old Smith was given emergency first aid by prison officers before being rushed to the Mater Hospital.

Three prison officers are understood to have rushed to his aid and applied pressure to his neck to stem the loss of blood from his wounds.

Paramedics then arrived at the prison and stabilised the victim at the scene before he was taken to hospital.

He subsequently underwent two life-saving operations.

Sources said it appeared Smith’s attacker had narrowly missed his jugular vein.

Smith’s most recent conviction came last April when he was given an eight-month sentence for assault causing harm to a female.

Smith, who is well known to gardai, has spent a large part of his 20s in prison.

In December 2014, he was jailed for four and a half years for his role in a number of violent crimes, including stabbing a bus passenger during a robbery and attacking a taxi driver while taking his vehicle.

At his sentencing hearing for those offences, the court heard how a then 22-year-old Smith and an accomplice viciously attacked the taxi driver before they tied him up and dumped him headfirst into a ditch.

The victim managed to free himself and was later treated for a skull and facial fractures.

The following month they forced a passenger off a bus after Smith stabbed him in the thigh and robbed his phone and iPod.

Smith then escorted the man to a nearby ATM in a garage forecourt, where he forced the victim to withdraw €200 in cash.

He and his accomplice then made their escape in a nearby taxi, which they were later arrested in.

The pair pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to unlawful seizure of a car and false imprisonment of a taxi driver on Tubber Lane, Lucan, on August 21, 2013.

Smith of Captain’s Road, Crumlin, and also Weaver Road in Clonsilla, also pleaded guilty to robbery of a man at Topaz Garage on the Kylemore Road, Bluebell, on September 17, 2013.

He also admitted possession of a knife and resisting a peace officer on the same date in Ballyfermot Garda Station.

Smith was on bail for a robbery in Roscommon at the time of both incidents.

The court heard he already had 57 previous convictions at that stage including robbery, threats to kill, possession of knives, theft and road traffic offences.

Pieter Le Vert BL, defending Smith, handed in a number of psychological reports into court and said his client had “a tough upbringing punctuated by episodes of violence”.

Judge Mary Ellen Ring imposed six years with the final 18 months suspended on Smith consecutive to his sentence from Roscommon.

The chief suspect for Sunday’s attack on Smith is a career criminal in his mid-20s who is originally from Dublin but had been living in the west of Ireland before being jailed.

He has a large number of previous convictions, including several for making threats to kill, seven for theft and over a dozen for public order offences.

In 2019, he received an 18-month sentence for threatening to kill or cause serious harm to an officer in Mountjoy.

Gardai have confirmed they are investigating the attack on Smith.

In a statement, a spokesperson said: “Gardaí are investigating an assault on a man in his 30s that occurred on the evening of Monday, August 7, at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin.

“The man is currently receiving treatment for serious injuries at a Dublin hospital. Investigations into this matter are ongoing.”