{"id":537353,"date":"2026-07-07T11:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T11:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537353\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T11:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T11:13:08","slug":"man-set-fire-to-car-and-robbed-shop-shortly-after-serving-jail-term-for-killing-teenager-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537353\/","title":{"rendered":"Man set fire to car and robbed shop shortly after serving jail term for killing teenager \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man who had just served a jail term for his role in killing a 16-year-old girl in 2012 has been jailed for setting fire to a car and robbing a shop last year. <\/p>\n

Keith Hall (37) had just been released after serving a sentence for the manslaughter of Melanie McCarthy-McNamara<\/a>, who was shot dead as she sat in a car in Tallaght<\/a> on February 8th, 2012. She was in the passenger seat of a car with her boyfriend and another man when she was shot with a double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun. <\/p>\n

The Central Criminal Court heard that her boyfriend, Christopher Corcoran, and another man, Paul Byrne, were the intended targets. Hall\u2019s role was to throw a rock at the window of the house to lure the occupants out of it.<\/p>\n

Hall, of Kells Road, Crumlin, pleaded guilty at Dublin<\/a> Circuit Criminal Court<\/a> to arson of a Volkswagen Passat in Whitestown Way in Tallaght on July 10th last and to the robbery of Halfords in Belgard Retail Park, also in Tallaght, on July 17th last. He has a total of 112 previous convictions.<\/p>\n

The court heard three males were caught on CCTV footage setting the car alight at 1.20am. Garda\u00ed<\/a> were able to identify the suspects and confirmed that Hall was one of those responsible for the arson after the doors of the vehicle were smashed and accelerant was poured in before it was set alight. <\/p>\n

Garda Elaine Markham told prosecuting barrister Carol Doherty that Hall was spotted by the deputy manager in Halfords the following week filling a bag with car valeting products. He then moved to another section of the shop and took more items from the camping section.<\/p>\n

He was approached by the deputy manager and threatened him. He was told to get out of the shop and Hall left without any \u201cfurther interaction\u201d, Markham said. The items taken, which were worth \u20ac800, were never recovered. <\/p>\n

Sentencing Hall on Monday, Judge Orla Crowe said Hall was present when the car was set alight and accepted that he had made admissions when he was arrested. <\/p>\n

She noted that he had only been released from prison when he got involved in the two offences before the court. <\/p>\n

The judge accepted that Hall had \u201cconsistent poly-substance abuse issues\u201d throughout his life and had spent most of his life in custody. <\/p>\n

She acknowledged that he has been on methadone since his remand in custody and is on an enhanced prison regime. <\/p>\n

She said a report from the Probation Service put Hall at \u201ca very high risk of reoffending\u201d but acknowledged that he has also demonstrated a positive attitude towards working with them and the service \u201cfeel they could work with him into the future\u201d. <\/p>\n

She imposed concurrent terms of 3\u00bd years on each of the offences. She suspended the final six months on condition that Hall engage with the Probation Service for one year upon his release from prison. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who had just served a jail term for his role in killing a 16-year-old girl in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,51250,615,61,60,43,13356],"class_list":["post-537353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-criminal-courts","tag-dublin","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-tallaght"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}