Offaly arsonist behind bars after judge told of fire at Kinnitty Castle

A MAN responsible for arson at Kinnitty Castle and two hotels in Galway in the 1990s was behind bars on Friday night (July 9) after his bail was dramatically revoked.

At the conclusion of a jury trial two days before on Wednesday, Fred Dolan, 54, had been found guilty of setting fire to a car at Harbour Street in Tullamore on June 9, 2018.

Mr Dolan, with addresses at Chapel Street and Clonminch Wood in Tullamore, then walked free from Tullamore Circuit Court after being remanded on bail for sentencing on December 7 next.

Mr Dolan, who had denied setting fire to a Mercedes parked quite close to his then address at Chapel Street, was convicted after the jury viewed CCTV recorded from a camera at a public house, trading as Tanyard Lane at the time, on William Street.

Judge Keenan Johnson was told there was no objection to bail.

However, at Friday's sitting of the court prosecution counsel Kevin White, BL, said the case was being re-entered because the gardai were now objecting to bail.

Despite opposition from defence counsel Stephen Byrne, BL, who said he had been given no advance notice of the change in the State position, Judge Johnson decided to hear evidence from Det Garda Pat Cleary.

Det Garda Cleary said he had not been present in court when the guilty verdict was returned and he was now objecting to bail because of concerns about reoffending and the man's previous convictions.

While his most recent convictions were for two theft offences, one recorded at Tullamore District Court in 2017 and the other at Mullingar District Court in 2017, his main concern was convictions for arson at Galway Circuit Court in 1999.

Det Garda Cleary said Mr Dolan had been convicted of four counts of arson, at the Skeffington Arms Hotel, the Corrib Great Southern Hotel, Kinnitty Castle, and a house at Glenard Avenue, Salthill.

Det Garda Cleary said the latter offence dated from 1982 and 15,000 pounds worth of damage had been caused.

The arson at the Skeffington Arms was committed in December 1994 and the Kinnitty Castle offence occurred in September 1997.

Mr Dolan received a three-year suspended sentence for those offences and had not been convicted of arson since, other than the fire which damaged the car in Tullamore in 2018.

Det Garda Cleary said fines of €200 had been imposed for both of the theft offences.

Cross-examined by Mr Byrne, Det Garda Cleary said the gardai had been aware of the previous convictions two days earlier when they indicated there was no objection to bail but agreed the guard present, Garda Barry Sheridan, had not said that.

When Mr Byrne indicated to him he was “puzzled” by what had changed since Wednesday, Det Garda Cleary repeated that the gardai were concerned there would be reoffending.

Det Garda Cleary said his role in the matter was to contact Mr Dolan on Thursday evening and inform him that he was to be in court the following day at 12 noon and that he should also contact his solicitor.

Ruling that he was going to remand Mr Dolan in custody, Judge Johnson said the four previous convictions for arson were of “grave concern” to him and the accused was not entitled to bail, having been found guilty by a jury of another arson offence.

In addition to the custody remand, he directed that a psychiatric report be prepared for Mr Dolan in advance of the sentencing date, which was fixed for December 7 next.

Mr Byrne then asked for time for his client to “get his affairs in order” and was told by Judge Johnson that he had made his decision and “that's it”.

Mr Dolan then indicated himself that he would like to be heard by the judge and Judge Johnson told him the “simple fact” was that he did not have any entitlement to bail.

“Given the gravity of the offence that's before the court, it's going to carry a custodial sentence in any event,” said Judge Johnson.

“You'll get credit for time served.”

The two-day trial had heard how the owner of the Mercedes Benz, David White, had parked the car on Harbour Street and gone for a drink at 9.30pm on the evening of June 9, a Saturday.

CCTV footage from a camera above a door of the Tanyard Lane public house was played for the jury by Garda Sheridan.

It captured the door of the pub, the footpath, the junction of William Street and Harbour Street, and in the distance, a number of parked cars, one of which the prosecution said was the Mercedes which went on fire later that night.

The jury also saw footage from inside the pub and Mr Dolan accepted that he could be seen in that clip, having gone in just before 11pm. He could be seen standing near the bar and looking out the window in the direction of Harbour Street.

It was also the State's contention that a figure recorded walking on Harbour Street and getting into the Mercedes at 10.30pm, leaving and returning to it and getting into the back of it for three minutes, was Mr Dolan.

Mr White, for the DPP (instructed by Sandra Mahon, Offaly state solicitor) also said a man recorded crossing from Harbour Street to William Street and going into the pub was Mr Dolan because he was wearing the same clothes, sandals, a tee-shirt and shorts, as the accused inside at the bar.

The court heard the fire brigade had been called when smoke was seen coming from the back area of the car at 11.10pm and when the vehicle was examined afterwards, firelighters were found in it.

The jury also heard that Mr Dolan, who lived “around the corner” from where the car was parked, was recognised by Det Garda Cleary in the footage from the interior of the pub.

When he was interviewed by the gardai, Mr Dolan said he did not remember being out that Saturday night and did not know anything about setting a car on fire.

When the CCTV footage was shown to him he accepted it was him inside the pub but did not accept that he was the person who was walking from the car.

When he was asked why he was standing up on his toes while looking out the window of the pub he said he needed to stretch his legs.

Replying to Mr Byrne (instructed by Donal Farrelly, solicitor), Garda Sheridan said a fingerprint which had been lifted from the roof of the car over the driver's door was sent for analysis but there was no match with Mr Dolan.

In his closing address to the jury Mr White said that while there was no independent eyewitness who could say they saw Mr Dolan getting into the car, the CCTV footage was a witness and was “entirely independent”.

In his closing argument, Mr Byrne said there had been no forensic evidence, there was no evidence of how the firelighters were ignited and there were no eyewitnesses “in the normal sense of things”.

Mr Byrne said none of the other people in the pub were questioned and brought to court and the central plank of the prosecution's case was the video footage.

Mr Byrne said identification evidence was unreliable and in this case the car was at a considerable distance from the camera, it was night time, and the most prominent feature seen on the footage was a traffic light.

He also noted that even the gardai had not said the man seen at the car could be clearly identified as Mr Dolan.

In his charge to the jury, Judge Johnson said no motive had been offered by the prosecution and it was accepted there was no connection between the accused and the owner of the car, a feature of the case he described as “bizarre”.

He said if they had any doubt about the identity of the man responsible for maliciously setting the car on fire, they must acquit.

After deliberating for about 90 minutes the jury of seven men and five women returned with a unanimous guilty verdict.

Mr Byrne applied for sentencing to be adjourned and asked for a direction that a probation and welfare service report be prepared.

He said Mr Dolan had already been in contact with psychiatric services and asked that his legal aid be extended to cover the cost of a report from a psychiatrist.

His request for a remand on continuing bail was accepted, as were the applications for the reports and the legal aid extension.