The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has dropped three charges of attempted murder against alleged Kinahan Cartel member Alan Wilson over the notorious Player’s Lounge shooting after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder at the Special Criminal Court today.
Wilson had been on trial since November 1 at the three-judge, non-jury court accused of attempting to murder three men outside the pub in Dublin in 2010. During the trial the court viewed CCTV footage showing a masked gunman firing several shots at the three men from close range as they stood on a footpath near the front door of the pub.
It is Wilson’s second plea to such a charge. In 2019, he admitted to conspiring with others to murder Gary Hanley at a location within the State between September 15 and November 6 2017. Wilson, who was secretly recorded by gardai in discussions about the murder plot, was later jailed by the Special Criminal Court for six years.
Wilson, 42, with a last address at New Street Gardens, Dublin 8 pleaded guilty this afternoon to a fresh charge that he conspired to murder persons unknown on July 26, 2010, contrary to Section 71 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006.
He also pleaded guilty to an offence under the Firearms Act of possession of a .38 calibre Smith & Wesson revolver and a .32 calibre Zastava semi-automatic pistol on dates between July 24 and July 26, 2010, in circumstances that give rise to the reasonable inference that he possessed them for an unlawful purpose.
Ronan Kennedy SC for the DPP said the plea was acceptable and the attempted murder charges will be dropped during a sentencing hearing on Monday.
Prior to the plea, the trial had been hearing evidence that members of the National Surveillance Unit planted listening devices in a Nissan Primastar and Volkswagen Caddy in 2017. Retired Detective Superintendent William Johnson said that Wilson and two other men who gardai had seen using the vans were members of the Kinahan organised crime gang. He said gardai needed to monitor conversations taking place inside the van to prevent crimes that encompassed risk to the lives of others.
In his opening speech to the court, Mr Kennedy said that Wilson could be overheard in one of the subsequent recorded conversations saying: “Remember the shooting at the Player’s Lounge; I done that.”
In another, the prosecution alleged Wilson expressed amazement at how one of the men survived, saying: “One of them, right in the forehead and five times in the body, it’s amazing how the c***s pull through it, like.”
Wilson had pleaded not (NOT) guilty to the attempted murders of Brian Masterson, Wayne Barrett and Austin Purcell at The Player’s Lounge Public House, Fairview Strand, Fairview, Dublin 3 on July 26, 2010. The prosecution will enter a “nolle prosequi”, formally dismissing that charge, on Monday.
Ms Justice Tara Burns, presiding, with Judge James Faughnan and Judge Sinéad Ní Chúlacháin, adjourned the matter until then.
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