Gang rapist Thomas O’Neill jailed for two years for drug dealing

Convicted gang rapist, Thomas O’Neill, has been jailed for two years for having cocaine and heroin for sale or supply in Limerick City.

O’Neill, (35), of Lenihan Avenue, Ballinacurra Weston, Limerick, admitted six counts under the Misuse of Drugs Act, including possession of heroin and cocaine for sale or supply, and simple possession of cocaine and heroin, at Hyde Avenue, Limerick, on dates in June 2023.

O’Neill’s sentencing hearing, which was held before Limerick Circuit Criminal Court, heard that an armed Garda unit observed O’Neill allegedly drug dealing while leaning into the rear of a Hyundai Tucson car, outside a house at Hyde Avenue.

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When the armed Gardai approached O’Neill he became aggressive in an effort to distract the officers who observed drugs deals on the rear seat of the vehicle, it was heard.

Gardai seized the car and found 23 heroin deals and 18 deals of cocaine bagged up on the rear seat. Gardai also obtained CCTV evidence showing O’Neill and two others engaging in alleged drug dealing.

Gardai searched O’Neill’s home and found seven more heroin deals, drug paraphernalia, as well as a set of keys to and registration certificate for the Hyundai Tucson.

After his arrest O’Neill told Gardai the drugs were for his own use, that he smoked 10 bags of heroin a day, and that the deal bags were for "bird seed and seeds for flowers."

Prosecuting barrister, John O’Sullivan, said that while the total amount of drugs seized from O’Neill (€616) might have been regarded as a low amount by some, it demonstrated O’Neill was actively dealing cocaine and heroin.

Mr O’Sullivan described O’Neill as a "veteran of the criminal justice system since he was a juvenile", and he highlighted O’Neill’s conviction and nine-year sentence in 2004 for his leading role in "a gang rape that achieved considerable notoriety".

O’Neill was one of four youths and an adult man who raped a woman at Cratloe Woods, Co Clare, on January 23, 2004.

O’Neill, Dean Barry and Darragh Ryan, were all aged 16 at the and their accomplice Jason Ring was 14.

The four were armed with a golf club, a screw driver, a shovel and a wheel brace, and threatened the woman and a male who had travelled to the woods in the early hours of the morning.

O’Neill and his accomplices ordered the pair out of their car and struck the woman with a golf club after she refused to give one of the gang a kiss.

The man was ordered into the boot of the vehicle while the four youths took turns raping the woman in the car.

The gang threatened to burn the car with the man inside it, and they assaulted the man a number of times with the golf club.

O’Neill and the others pleaded guilty to rape, false imprisonment and assault causing harm, and were jailed for a total of 31 years.

O’Neill was described by then-sentencing judge Paul Carney, now deceased, as the "ringleader" and the "director of operations" of the gang and jailed him for 10 years with the final 12 months suspended; Dean Barry, Garryglass Avenue, Ballinacurra Weston, was jailed for nine years; Darragh Ryan, Lenihan Avenue, Ballinacurra Weston, was jailed for eight years, and Ring, of Crecora Avenue, Ballinacurra Weston, was sentenced to four years.

Dean Barry was later found dead after committing suicide in his cell at Limerick Prison on Sunday, January 22, 2012. He had been in custody on remand at the prison on a charge of setting fire to his family home with his mother and girlfriend inside the property. He left a note saying goodbye to his family and apologising for his past crimes.

In 2005, a fifth member of the rape gang, Stephen Barry, Roxboro Road, Limerick, then aged 25, pleaded guilty to four charges arising out of the rape and was jailed for 21 years with the final year suspended.

Mr O’Sullivan told O’Neill’s sentencing hearing for drug dealing that O’Neill had previous convictions for violent disorder, assault with intent to cause bodily harm, false imprisonment, intimidating a witness, robbery, having a mobile phone in jail, affray, possessing drugs for sale or supply, and road traffic offences.

O’Neill's barrister, Liam Carroll BL, told the drugs sentencing hearing that O’Neill was struggling with heroin addiction at the time and that he is currently on a drugs treatment programme in prison and engaging in education and cookery classes inside.

Mr Carroll said that O’Neill’s wife, April Collins, was present in the court to support her husband and that "Ms Collins had similar challenges through her association with certain people, she was a State witness in a murder trial, her life was under threat for a significant period of time thereafter, and she expects better of (O’Neill) having removed herself from that lifestyle".

Ms Collins is a former girlfriend of convicted criminal Ger Dundon, of the notorious McCarthy-Dundon crime family, and she was previously provided with round-the-clock Garda protection after appearing as a key State witness in a trial that helped Gardai dismantle the leadership of the Dundon-McCarthy crime gang.

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