A member of a "hit team" has been jailed for eight years by the Special Criminal Court for having a Beretta handgun and silencer after a confrontation with armed gardaí during which an officer opened fire on a jeep. The three-judge court heard Owen Cummins had driven the jeep straight towards gardaí in a narrow roadway as they restrained his co-accused on the ground. Passing sentence today, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said Cummins had recently suffered a personal tragedy when his 19-year-old child died in a road traffic accident. The firearm was of a lethal variety and there was a bullet in the breach ready for use, continued the judge. Mr Justice Hunt, presiding, sitting with Judge Gerard Griffin and Judge Dermot Dempsey, sentenced Cummins to nine years and six months imprisonment with the final 18 months suspended.

Source: Irish Examiner March 03, 2020 17:15 UTC