Overview
- Mr Justice Paul McDermott imposed a seven-and-a-half year term with the final six months suspended, to begin after Richards’s existing six-year-five-month sentence, resulting in more than 12 years in custody.
- Because the offence occurred in 2018, the court was limited to a 10-year maximum for conspiracy to murder, which the judge said this case warranted given its seriousness.
- The Director of Public Prosecutions accepted a guilty plea to conspiracy to murder on a full-facts basis, and the court recorded that Richards was the shooter after an initial murder case was delayed by a key witness’s poor health.
- The killing was meticulously planned by using someone trusted by the victim to lure him to the door, with the firearm later successfully disposed of and a getaway car used.
- An investigative breakthrough came in April 2021 when a witness reported Richards’s confession and described his drug desperation, and Gardaí had previously warned the victim his life was under threat.