{"id":577582,"date":"2026-07-31T18:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T18:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/577582\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T18:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T18:18:11","slug":"garda-killer-aaron-brady-has-sentence-for-recording-witness-interview-increased-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/577582\/","title":{"rendered":"Garda killer Aaron Brady has sentence for recording witness interview increased \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Garda killer Aaron Brady, who showed \u201ccontempt\u201d for his capital murder trial by secretly recording a Garda interview with a potentially key witness, has had his three-year sentence increased following a successful appeal by the State.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the Director of Public Prosecutions<\/a> (DPP) had argued that the case raised an important issue of \u201cprinciple\u201d rather than one of practical consequence, as Brady (35) is already serving a life sentence<\/a> for the murder of Det Garda Adrian Donohoe.<\/p>\n

However, they said there are \u201cvery few, if any cases where deterrence would be more important\u201d.<\/p>\n

Quashing Brady\u2019s original three-year prison term and resentencing him to five years imprisonment on Friday, Judge Isobel Kennedy said the offending was an \u201caffront to the administration of justice\u201d.<\/p>\n

What occurred was \u201cpremeditated\u201d, \u201cinsidious\u201d and \u201cmenacing\u201d, the Court of Appeal judge said, and was aggravated by the fact that it occurred in the context of a capital murder trial.<\/p>\n

In August 2020, Brady, formerly of New Road, Crossmaglen, Co Armagh, was convicted by a jury of the murder of Donohoe during a credit union robbery at Lordship, Bellurgan, Co Louth on January 25, 2013.<\/p>\n

\"DetDet Garda Adrian Donohoe’s remains are carried into the church for his funeral in Dundalk, Co Louth, in 2013. Photograph: Eric Luke <\/p>\n

In 2024, he pleaded guilty to a charge that on a date between February 20th and May 7th, 2020, within the State, he video-recorded the playing of a witness interview between Ronan Flynn and members of An Garda <\/a>S\u00edoch\u00e1na<\/a>, thus embarking on a course of conduct intended to pervert the course of justice.<\/p>\n

A further count was taken into account. This related to conspiring with Dean Byrne to persuade prosecution witness Daniel Cahill not to give evidence with the intention of perverting the course of justice between April 8th, 2020 and June 22nd, 2020.<\/p>\n

Brady was sentenced to three years in prison by the three-judge, non-jury Special Criminal Court.<\/p>\n

As Brady is already serving a life sentence for murdering Donohoe, his sentence for perverting the course of justice will make no difference to the time he serves.<\/p>\n

Brady accepted he was responsible for recording footage of an interview between garda\u00ed and Flynn, a witness who told garda\u00ed he had heard Brady admit to shooting Donohoe three times.<\/p>\n

The video was later posted on social media accusing Flynn of \u201ctouting\u201d and being a \u201crat\u201d.<\/p>\n

Flynn did not give evidence at Brady\u2019s trial and Judge Michael White, who oversaw the murder trial, described the release of the footage as \u201cthe most outrageous contempt of court\u201d and a clear attempt to intimidate Flynn and other witnesses.<\/p>\n

Brady also sent photographs of portions of Daniel Cahill\u2019s statement to Dean Byrne (33), a violent criminal housed on the same wing of Mountjoy Prison.<\/p>\n

Byrne passed the statements on to at least two people. The State argued this was an attempt to get Cahill\u2019s family members to persuade him not to give evidence.<\/p>\n

Cahill did give evidence at Brady\u2019s trial, telling the jury that Brady admitted to shooting a garda on three occasions while Brady was living in New York, having fled from Ireland in the aftermath of the murder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Garda killer Aaron Brady, who showed \u201ccontempt\u201d for his capital murder trial by secretly recording a Garda interview…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1346,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-577582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-garda-siochana","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577582","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=577582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}