A well-known Dublin criminal has been jailed for fifteen years for firing a machine gun during a rampage in Ballymun in Dublin on March 11th last year.
Derek Devoy, also known as ‘Bottler Devoy,’ fired two shots into the air in the middle of the afternoon.
The incident took place in what was described as a ‘densely populated’ part of Ballymun.
Five shots were also fired as Gardaí tried to arrest him in a house he retreated to.
He took aim at them while sitting on the toilet.
One of the shots narrowly missed Garda Niall Minnock’s head.
He, and his two other unarmed colleagues, managed to restrain Devoy in a bathtub.
While doing so, they noticed a hand grenade on the ground.
The safety pin had been removed.
However it didn’t explode.
At his sentence hearing today, Mr. Justice Tony Hunt said, ‘it was due to good luck rather than design,"that nobody was seriously injured or killed."
He handed down a sentence of 17 years in prison, but suspended the final two years.
