CRAZED ATTACKS | 

Thug’s Christmas arson spree over €150 car tow fine lands him 9 nine years in prison

Firestarter who targeted three innocent people and destroyed a business has his jail sentence increased

Today at 08:20

A VOLATILE thug who carried out a series of Christmas arson attacks targeting three innocent people went on the crime spree because he didn’t want to pay a tow fee of €150 for a car he had written off.

Graham Shannon (34), who has 82 previous convictions including convictions for drugs offences and threatening to kill gardai, is a reckless criminal who targeted cars belonging to three people in arson attacks over a three-day period in Wexford at Christmas 2018.

The incidents caused massive damage and destroyed a business belonging to an innocent tow truck driver.

Sources said Shannon laughed in court at one of his victims last year when he was sentenced to just three-and-a-half years for the attacks.

However, he wasn’t laughing in December when the Court of Appeal ruled that sentence was too short and instead sentenced him to nine years.

Two of the three arson attacks were ordered by a close associate of Shannon who paid him just €200 to do so.

Shannon was suspected in multiple other arson attacks as well as attacks on garda vehicles, and also made threats to kill gardai.

“He’s a total nutjob. There were burnt cars all over the New Ross district and Shannon was suspected of most of them. He burnt a garda’s car before as well,” a source said.

The source added that while Shannon was a reckless criminal, he was very much under control of another criminal figure in the area. “This person had control over Shannon. When he told Shannon to jump, he said how high, and the third party loved this.”

The associate ordered Shannon to carry out a series of arson attacks around Wexford over Christmas in 2018.

Shannon and the crime figure hatched the plan following an incident in December 2018 when a car belonging to Shannon had been crashed during an incident and towed away.

Shannon then arrived at Furlong’s Auto Body Repair Shop run by Niall Furlong in Ballywilliam where the car had been towed but Shannon didn’t want to pay the €150 tow fee.

“Shannon didn’t want to pay it and had an argument with the garage owner. He told him ‘I know where your business is’ and made threats.”

Shannon left the scene and gardai started searching for him. He later returned to the garage with the other man where gardai were waiting for him.

At this point gardai decided to search Shannon’s car and the car of the man who drove him there. They found a number of items in Shannon’s vehicle including a balaclava, crowbar, claw hammer and nail bar.

After this incident Shannon decided to target the business in an arson attack.

However, Shannon was ordered to carry out two other attacks on vehicles belonging to innocent people who the other man held grudges against going back more than a decade.

The other two innocent victims were Siobhan Delaney, who had given evidence against the man after he rammed her off the road in the early 2000s, and Martin Finn, who had previously reported the man for stealing diesel from him years earlier.

The crime figure agreed to wipe just €200 off a €450 loan for a car Shannon had got off him to carry out attacks on Ms Delaney and Mr Finn’s vehicles.

On the night of December 23, 2018, Shannon arrived outside Ms Delaney’s house to carry out an arson attack but fled after a sensor light went off and she looked out to see a man running away.

Shannon then visited Mr Finn’s house in Cassagh and destroyed a 2011 Toyota Landcruiser worth €19,000 and a 152 Ford Focus valued at €21,000 in an arson attack.

The house was occupied at the time by Mr Finn and his wife.

Mr Finn sadly passed away from a heart attack last September.

After targeting Mr Finn, Shannon returned to Ms Delaney’s house at around 2am on December 24 and destroyed her Ford Focus car in another arson attack. She was in the house at the time which was also badly damaged in the attack as her vehicle had been parked right outside her home.

Ironically, Mr Furlong collected the burnt-out cars belonging to Mr Finn and Ms Delaney on his tow truck following the arson attacks, unaware that he would be next.

In the early hours of St Stephen’s Day, Shannon arrived at Mr Furlong’s garage and set it on fire, destroying everything inside when gas cannisters used for welding exploded.

Mr Furlong’s business was destroyed and he told a court he was financially destroyed overnight and was out of work for eight months.

He said the total loss amounted to €280,000 but his insurance only paid out €67,000 because the arson was a deliberate act carried out by Shannon.

The court heard Shannon also threatened to kill two gardai in December 2019 and posted the registration number of one of the garda’s cars on Facebook looking for his address.