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Alleged Sligo gang boss sets up waste management company, seeks planning for motor business

Stephen French was named in CAB case against dead drug dealer Ian McMorrow

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The alleged leader of a Sligo organised crime gang named in a Criminal Assets Bureau case has set up a waste management business and is seeking planning permission to run a car storage business.

Stephen French was named in the CAB legal action against drug-dealer Ian McMorrow who was recently killed in a motorbike accident.

French is listed as a director of SF Waste Management in company records along with his partner Sarah Gethins.

She was also named in an affidavit filed by CAB in the case against McMorrow and his partner Claudia Gethins in May.

SF Waste Management is listed at an address at Union Road in Collooney, Sligo, where the firm also made a planning application earlier this year.

French has been described in the High Court as the leader of an organised crime gang and a close associate of his cousin, recently convicted mob boss Barry Young.

French and McMorrow were also described as being close associates who interacted “on an ongoing and frequent basis”.

A senior detective stated in the affidavit: “Stephen French or ‘Frenchy’ has been heavily involved in the drugs trade in Sligo for a number of years now.”

“During this time he established a network of associates in Sligo and countrywide.”

It was added that “a number of dealers working for Stephen French have been involved in confrontations with rival group members.”

“Ian McMorrow is known to have been one of the dealers for ‘Frenchy’ in the Sligo district.”

McMorrow kept an association with Stephen French “whose partner Sarah Gethins, is a frequent visitor to Ian McMorrow’s house” in Sligo.

In October 2015, Stephen French and another man were arrested when gardaí seized €68,000 worth of cocaine and cannabis and €81,000 in cash in an operation targeting the gang.

He was released without charge and the Director of Public Prosecution recommended no prosecution, according to the affidavit.

French’s house was targeted in a petrol bomb attack which was thrown at his partner’s car in the driveway.

It was not known who targeted French, according to garda evidence, but at the time a serious feud had developed between Barry Young and the Sligo branch of the Real IRA.

This feud “resulted in tit-for-tat shootings on both sides and it is suspected Stephen French may well have been targeted in the context of that feud”.

It was not the first time French was targeted at his home.

In February 2012, three men appeared at his house, one of whom was armed with a slash hook in what was described as a dispute over money. ​

One of them punched him in the face and produced a weapon in what was described as “a heated argument that overheated”.

It was also heard that fences had since been mended, damages paid and there was no animosity between the men, and suspended sentences were handed down to French’s attackers.

The court was told that €500 in compensation was handed over after Sarah Gethins car was kicked during the same altercation.

Ian McMorrow, described in the recent High Court case as being “actively involved the sale and supply of drugs” in the region, didn’t challenge the CAB bid to have his car and cash declared the proceeds of crime.

The case has highlighted the links between the Irwin organised crime gang and the mob previously headed up by convicted gangster Barry Young with connections all over Ireland and abroad.

Judge Alex Owens accepted the VW Golf, two diamond rings and €5,000 in €50 notes were “funded by the drugs trade” and granted the order to have the cash and property declared the proceeds of crime.

The following month McMorrow died in a motorbike crash.

Earlier this year, French SF Waste Management lodged an application with Sligo County Council to retain a compound for end-of-life cars and metal recycling.​

​According to the Sligo County Council’s online planning records the application is noted as currently being ‘incomplete’.