Gangland criminal Wayne Whelan ran business with man who conspired to murder him

Four men have been sentenced to a combined 33 years imprisonment following convictions related to a conspiracy to murder Wayne Whelan, a criminal figure with connections to Longford and Limerick. The Central Criminal Court heard that Wayne Ryan, aged 41 with an address in Longford, discharged a firearm multiple times at Whelan's vehicle at Griffeen Glen Park, Lucan on 4 September 2019. Whelan was struck by four of eleven shots fired during the broad daylight attack outside his home. Firearms residue recovered from Ryan's clothing provided strong forensic evidence of his involvement in the shooting. Three Dublin-based co-conspirators pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder. Charles McClean, who had previously operated a car sales business with Whelan before the enterprise ceased trading in 2016, was sentenced to eight years. Darren Henderson and Cailean Crawford each received seven years imprisonment, with the final two years of Crawford's sentence suspended. Ryan received a 15-year sentence for the attempted murder conviction. Mr Justice Michael White noted the callous indifference demonstrated in the deliberate attack. A badly damaged handgun was recovered from a burnt-out Ford Focus at the Old Bog Road in Kilcock, County Kildare, minutes after the shooting. The conspiracy to commit murder was established to have operated between May and November 2019. All four men were remanded in custody pending sentence hearings conducted in September 2021, with sentences backdated to reflect time already served. Whelan survived this initial attack but was fatally shot in a separate incident two months later, in November 2019. The consolidated trial consolidated charges related to both the attempted murder and arson, with proceedings lasting approximately six weeks from June 2021.