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GARDAÍ BELIEVE THEY have identified a chief suspect in the triple shooting at Bray boxing club which left one person dead and two others injured.
Officers had drawn up a list of people of interest who they believe could have potentially carried out the June attack which left innocent man Bobby Messett (50) dead and injured two others, including boxing coach Pete Taylor who ran the club.
But in recent weeks, detectives received what they believe to be trustworthy intelligence which identified one man as the shooter. The man, who is from north Dublin, is part of a criminal family. He is also suspected of supplying weapons to other criminal outfits.
The suspect in the case has been under garda surveillance since shortly after the shooting. He is well-known to officers and has been using social media to taunt members of gardaí who have, so far, been unable to arrest him for questioning due to a lack of concrete evidence.
Gardaí also believe they have established a motive for the triple shooting and that it is related to organised crime in the Bray area.
A number of informants have told officers that the harbour and seafront area of Bray was the centre of the local drug trade – a place where dealers and suppliers regularly met.
There is no suggestion that anyone present at the time of the shooting was, in any way, involved in any form of criminal activity.
Gardai have also been trying to trace the origin of a silver coloured Volkswagen Caddy van with Northern Irish registration plates used in the shooting.
It is believed that this van travelled from Bray through Shankill and the Cornelscourt area before being abandoned on Pigeon House Road where a man was seen leaving the van and cycling away. The PSNI has been helping gardaí with this aspect of the investigation.
Pete Taylor has previously trained boxers linked to MTK Global, a boxing management company part-founded by drug trafficker Daniel Kinahan.
A statement released by MTK earlier this year said it had “cut all ties with Mr Kinahan in February 2017″.
There is no suggestion Pete Taylor is involved in any form of criminality.
Around the time of the shooting, gardaí had been carrying out surveillance on a number of people they suspected of moving significant quantities of cocaine across north Wicklow and south Dublin.
Detectives are also probing the activities of a convicted killer who has started to operate in the drug trade locally. The man is also believed to be involved in a violent debt collection business.
Gardai are appealing for anyone with information to contact Bray Garda Station on 01 6665300 or the confidential tip line on 1800 666 111.
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Anyone buying drugs is fueling all this, and is ultimately giving money to these crims.
@EDun: Well till they legalise marijuana i will gladly continue to contribute as you call it.
@Daithi: You are happy to fund criminal activity including murder? Nice!
@Mervyn Nutley: well if it was legal I wouldn’t have too,which was the point of my comment,are you a member of the pc brigade by any chance ?
@Daithi: I just think that it is pretty selfish for you to put your desire for recreational escapism over an innocent person’s life. Nothing PC about that!
@Mervyn Nutley: well I wouldn’t have to fund anyone if it was legal & I didn’t ask em to shoot anyone either so come down of your high horse
@EDun: if I was allowed to buy my weed , or grow my own I would
@alan nolan: legally
@Daithi: you said you were happy to contribute, well that shooting in Bray is what you are “contributing” to. Take responsibility for your actions and your decisions to fund criminality. You can’t wash your hands by saying you didn’t ask them to shoot someone. That is what they do! And while you may want to see drugs decriminalised until they are you bear some responsibility for what the people you fund do!
@Daithi: You’re living proof that hash damages brain cells judging by your comments
@Mervyn Nutley: You Tosser!
@alan nolan: I think you can, within reason!
@Daithi: NOT MUCH CHANCE OF A JOB OF YOUR ON WEED..
@Mervyn Nutley: feck all innocent about criminals
@EDun: Think it would be easier to count the one’s who are not on drugs.
@Colette Kearns: no you can’t
@Daithi: it’s also illegal to steal & assault…should we all start robbing & beating people up until it’s made legal ? You don’t get to decide what’s legal and not….society does & until that changes you’re supporting drug crime….including murder !
@Susan Lyons Finn: It has been clearly established that the man shot and killed in the Bray shooting was totally innocent of any criminal activity, as was the man shot in “mistaken Identity” in Spain last year,and well as others who were victims of “mistaken identity” here in Dublin. Not everyone the gangs kill are guilty of criminality!
@Mervyn Nutley: some people unwittingly do this when buying coffee.
@Michael Heery: that’s a silly stereotype. The vast majority of weed smokers are in full-time employment.
@Daithi: bit of a tool…
@Michael Heery: I assume you mean “if you are on weed” I personally don’t smoke weed but know plenty of people with good full time jobs who smoke weed.
@Daithi: you should be ashamed. Of course marijuana alters the brain chemistry so perhaps that’s what has happen to you.
It’s never the lower ranking red indians.
Haha great picture of your man in the hazmat suit giving directions to the guard. “Yeah the dead body is over there lad” “this way?”
That’s not a real Mustang. Ecoboost. Pah.
How do the police get anything done in the way of conducting business when it’s all right here for the reading? My goodness, if a newspaper writer put something about an investigation that I was working on in my 20+ years in law Enforcement in the press, he would have “accidentally” walked over a poorly discarded banana peel* on his way to his car after work!
* Banana peel was less offensive to the reader than Aluminum baseball bat to the kneecaps!
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