Globe-trotting car thief convicted of murdering Michael Barr at Sunset House pub in Dublin more than four years ago

A GLOBETROTTING car thief has been convicted by the Special Criminal Court, which is not part of the jury, for murdering the manager of the Sunset House pub in Dublin more than four years ago.

Liverpool native David Hunter, 41, residing in Du Cane Road, White City, London, had denied the murder of 35-year-old dissident Republican Michael Barr at the Sunset House pub in Dublin’s north city center in the night of April 25. , 2016.

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The presiding judge, Judge Alexander Owens, said today that the evidence had been heard “convincingly” that Hunter was one of two gunmen who entered the Summerhill pub and killed Barr by shooting him.

Hunter’s involvement in the murder had been “fully proven” and the three-judge court was “sure of his guilt,” he said.

The judge noted that most of a DNA profile taken from a ski mask recovered during the investigation into Mr. Barr’s shooting matched and verified Hunter’s profile.

The circumstantial evidence in the case “pointed inextricably” to Hunter’s guilt and the facts taken together had established the guilt of the father of five beyond a reasonable doubt and no other rational explanation could be drawn, the judge said.

‘AMAZING’

Judge Owens said the court rejected Hunter’s explanation of his whereabouts at night and found it “implausible” and that part of it is contradicted by other evidence.

He also said that the whole story of how Hunter came to lose his balaclava “didn’t have a hint of truth” and there was no question that it was put in the car to be used in the murder or the getaway car. .

In a voluntary statement to Gardaí, Hunter said that the ski mask was his, but that he had dropped it in a car driven by another man when he visited Ireland two months before the murder in a car theft exercise.

Hunter claimed that he had worn the mask on several ski trips with his children to Norway, France, Spain, Scotland, Austria and Switzerland.

During the trial, several vacation photos of Mr. Hunter in a ski mask were released to the court.

‘STRONG PROBABILITY’

“The DNA material attributed to Hunter and the matching DNA profile established a strong probability that Hunter was one of the killers in the car,” the judge said, adding that it was not a “credible explanation” that the balaclava had been left. back for him on a previous trip to Dublin.

Hunter is the second man to be found guilty of murdering Mr. Barr. In January 2018, Eamonn Cumberton, 32, of Mountjoy Street, Dublin 7, was also convicted of murdering the native of Tyrone.

Barr was shot seven after two armed men in boiler suits and full-face rubber masks entered the Sunset House pub around 9 p.m.

He had been shot five times in the head, once in the leg and once in the shoulder.

The then deputy state pathologist, Dr. Michael Curtis, discovered that the cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds.

AUDI A6 SILVER

During the five-week trial that ended in July, evidence was presented that around 9:20 p.m. on Walsh Road in Drumcondra, a silver Audi A6 was seen arriving and that three occupants got out and set the car on fire.

The three men got into a “possibly silver” Ford Mondeo and left the scene, but Gardaí already in the area arrived at 9:42 p.m. and extinguished the fire.

The burning Audi A6 vehicle was examined and assembled and loaded weapons were discovered, ready for use.

Boiler suits, two balaclavas and two rubber masks were also found in the back seat. A phone, which had several missed calls, was found next to a bullet in the nearby grass.

During the trial, Dr. Edward Connolly of Forensic Science Ireland testified that mixed DNA profiles had been found on two masks, one rubber and one ski, taken from the Audi by Gardaí.

The expert said he found a mixed DNA profile on a four-element balaclava; one major, two minor, and a trace.

‘MAIN CONTRIBUTOR’

The “largest contributor” to the balaclava DNA profile made up 61% of the mixed profile, he said.

DNA samples from an apple core and a cigarette butt discarded by Hunter in the course of his extradition from the UK and his processing in Ireland on October 16, 2019 were also crossed by Dr Connolly.

The witness testified that the odds in the profile created by the butt and apple core of being “an individual not related to the DNA in the ski mask were” one billion to one. “

Closing the prosecution’s case in July, prosecutor Dominic McGinn SC with Ronan Kennedy SC said Hunter would have to be an “extremely unfortunate” man if he was not involved in the murder.

He argued that “there could be no reasonable doubt” of Hunter’s involvement unless the court believed that he had been “extremely unfortunate with all these coincidences” that had been offered in his defense.

McGinn said the DNA evidence in a ski mask, which had a mixed profile with a 61% contributor, matched the DNA profile taken from a used cigarette butt and earplugs and discarded by Hunter when he was low. custody.

Additionally, McGinn said the ballistics could match the weapons used in the killing with those found in an Audi A6 on Walsh Road in Drumcondra, Dublin 9, shortly after the shooting.

‘NO JAMES BOND’

Defense attorney Roisin Lacey SC said in her closing speech that her client “was not James Bond or Ethan Hunt” and was instead a “two-bit car thief.”

Ms Lacey noted that Hunter, who claimed he came to Ireland to see a concert and said he was with two women in a Dublin hotel at the time of the shooting, could not “logically” have been the killer.

The lawyer stressed that her client was not at Sunset House, nor in the vehicles used at night and that he did not shoot anyone.

Ms Lacey indicated that the defendant was a regular user of the mask in the past and this could explain most of the mixed profile coming from Hunter on the ski mask that had been in close contact with the rubber mask.

Judge Owens will issue the mandatory sentence of life in prison on November 2 and will leave Hunter in custody until that date.

He postponed sentencing after defense attorney Ms. Lacey asked for time to read victim impact statements that will be presented to court.