Liam Byrne (born 30 October 1980 in Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish criminal and member of the Byrne Organised Crime Group and the Kinahan Organised Crime Group founded by Christy Kinahan.
Family
His parents are James and Sadie Byrne (née Roe). He is the second youngest of six siblings. He has a sister Maria and his youngest sibling was David Byrne who was shot dead in February 2016 as part of the Hutch–Kinahan feud. He is a brother-in-law of Thomas Kavanagh. He is a cousin of Freddie Thompson, who has been convicted of murder.
Early criminal career
Byrne became known to Gardaí as a street dealer of cannabis and later ecstasy. Christy Kinahan supplied them with the drugs. Kinahan is from St Theresa's Gardens, not far from the part of Crumlin where Byrne lived. When Byrne was in his early teens, Kinahan was in his late 30s and based in both Dublin and Tamworth.
Kinahan was the first leader of the gang.
Christy Kinahan was arrested and jailed in Dublin in 1997 after being linked to a batch of stolen cheques. Leadership of the gang passed to Freddie Thompson and Byrne and his associates started sourcing their drugs from elsewhere.
Convictions
He has a conviction for armed robbery and one for assault. Both crimes were committed when he was a teenager.
Armed robbery
Byrne and his close friend Liam Greenhalgh, the Ireland under-16 captain, carried out armed robberies on two shops in Dublin's south inner city in July 1998. During the second robbery, an off-duty Garda walked into the shop.
Liam pleaded guilty to burglary, dangerous driving and firearms charges. In January 2000 he was found guilty and given a suspended sentence of four years.
Assault of Trevor Donnelly
On 23 April 2000 Trevor Donnelly and his partner Jennifer Doyle were involved in a row with three women in the Abrakebabra in the Crumlin Shopping Centre. The women followed them from the takeaway, hitting them as a security guard intervened. Byrne arrived in his car and began beating Donnelly with a baseball bat, hitting him even as he lay on the ground. When Jennifer pleaded with him to stop, Liam said "Tell him if he wakes up it's bullets."
About fifty people witnessed the assault, but only Doyle and Donnelly were willing to testify. Most were too afraid of Byrne and his gang to testify.
Sentence activated
When he was brought before the court his suspended sentence was activated and he was jailed for the first time on 23 May 2000.
Witness intimidation
Byrne tried to intimidate Doyle on several occasions. First he offered €50,000 to her to not testify, with a threat to kill her if she testified. She refused to take the bribe.
Further threats forced her to leave her home after it was shot at. There was a plot to murder her - an INLA gunman was asked to kill her to prevent her testimony.
She lived in B&Bs and hotel accommodation under an alias and was virtually penniless. She was not included in a witness protection programme.
After she testified she was badly injured in an assault in the corridors of the Four Courts.
Her testimony was a major factor in Byrne's conviction and two years were added to the four year sentence which after remission amounted to four and a half years. The sentences were initially to run concurrently but the Court of Appeals decided they should run consecutively.
Crumlin-Drimnagh feud
Two months before Byrne was first jailed, three members of the gang Byrne was involved with were arrested at the Holiday Inn in Pearse street.
Two of them were charged, but the third, Declan Gavin, was released without charge. A bitter row ensued over whether Gavin had informed on the others. Gavin was a close friend of Byrne.
The gang split into fwo factions: one headed by Brian Rattigan and one headed by Freddie Thompson and Declan Gavin. After Byrne was jailed, the dispute turned violent.
In March 2001 Christy Kinahan was released from prison. He wanted to avoid the Criminal Assets Bureau, the feud and to be closer to the European cocaine wholesale market. He moved to Spain a few months later.
Within weeks of Kinahan's departure Brian Rattigan had fatally stabbed Declan Gavin. The feud would lead to 13 fatalities and last a decade.
Byrne was eventually released from jail in November 2004.
Byrne Organised Crime Group
He is the current head of the Byrne organised crime group, which is a branch of the Kinahan gang founded by Christy Kinahan. It was then led by Freddie Thompson, then by Liam.