UNDER LOCK AND FREE

Notorious armed robber out despite 10-year sentence



CAREFREE: Gavin Farrelly takes a stroll to training course

GANGSTER Gavin Farrelly looks relaxed as he strolls unaccompanied through our capital's streets - despite the fact he is serving a 10-year prison sentence for an infamous armed robbery. In May 2005, Farrelly (42), was part of a three-man gang which attempted to hold up a post office in Lusk, Co. Dublin.

However, Gardai had received intelligence that the robbery was planned and they had placed armed undercover officers in the building. After the raiders refused to disarm, Collie Griffin (33) - the brother of paedo mob boss Christy Griffin - and Eric Hopkins were fatally shot by Emergency Response Unit (ERU) members who feared for the lives of the staff in the post office.

Farrelly survived after dropping his sledgehammer. The double shooting sparked uproar, with the Gardai coming under fire from some politicians for using lethal force. Those views make a sharp contrast to the support given to Gardai by all political parties this week following the savage murder of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe.

In these exclusive photographs, Farrelly can be seen walking through Coolock village in north Dublin on Thursday - just 24 hours after tragic Adrian was laid to rest.

Botched

In May 2007, the burly criminal was jailed for 10 years with two years suspended after admitting his role in the botched armed raid. But while Farrelly is only due, in theory, to be released from prison in 2015 - he is already walking the streets unaccompanied.



ARMED RAID: Colm Griffin

Every day, he leaves Mountjoy Prison at 7.30am and gets the bus to Coolock. He then attends a training course in a centre for inmates and ex-prisoners before getting the bus back to the jail in the inner-city.

A source said Farrelly has struck up a close friendship with Limerick hitman Richard Bermingham in Mountjoy Prison. In 1996 Bermingham was jailed for life for shooting Joseph Kiely (29), five times in the head in O'Malley Park, in Southill.

A prison insider said: "They are always together and get on well, you wouldn't mess with either of them still."

In September 2007 Farrelly was back in court to tell a highly-charged inquest he did not hear any warnings from the ERU before shots were fired during the Lusk robbery.

He claimed: "I know what I heard. I remembered it like it happened five minutes ago."

However, the detective garda who killed the two raiders told Coroner Brian Farrell he had called a warning. And he insisted there was no doubt in his mind they were prepared to kill him and he feared for the lives of customers as well as his own. The nine-member jury agreed with coroner that the ERU detective who shot Hopkins, believed he was armed.