Angry scenes follow sentencing

As the verdict of guilty on all four counts was read out, relatives clapped and cheered while others shouted: "you murderer." Another shouted: "I hope Darren comes back and haunts you", while others openly wept.

Sentence was postponed until the afternoon when Mr Justice McKechnie jailed the accused for eight years on two counts and four years on another two counts.

As sentence was delivered, relatives screamed at Mark Desmond: "You murdering pig, murdering pig". Another roared: "You're only brave with your guns in your hand. Two children dead over your drug involvement."

Mark Desmond smiling back replied: "Eight years. I'll do it on my back."

Desmond (aged 27) had pleaded not guilty to unlawful possession of three shotguns, one rifle and one 12 gauge shotgun cartridge with intent to endanger life at Lally road, Ballyfermot between 1 October 1999 and 17 February 2000. However, after deliberating for two and a half hours, the jury unanimously found the accused guilty on all four counts.

Sentencing Mark Desmond to eight years for possession with intent to endanger life and four years for unlawful possession, Mr Justice Liam McKechnie stressed that he took no account of allegations during the trial of the accused's alleged involvement in drugs and the murders.

After sentence was passed, prison officers brought Mark Desmond out through a door normally reserved for the jury. Relatives of the dead men, who were waiting in the corridor attempted to lunge at the accused and had to be forcibly restrained by gardai.

Patrick Murray (aged 19) and Darren Carey (aged 20) were shot in the head in a suspected drug related killing and their bodies dumped in the Grand Canal at Karneystown, Co Kildare sometime between 29 December 1999 and 10 January 2000.

The court heard that during the murder investigation, Jonathon Desmond, the accused's cousin, told gardai that Mark Desmond showed him a cache of firearms in the back garden of a house at Lally Road in early December 1999. The witness said the two dead men had travelled to Amsterdam with Mark Desmond when he was buying heroin and arranging to have it brought back to Dublin.

The gardai raided the house on foot of Jonathon Desmond's statement and recovered two shotguns, one long rifle, one unused shotgun cartridge and three discharged cartridges.

The State's case was that the guns found in a raid on a house in Lally Road, Ballyfermot on 17 February 2000 had been stolen in Athlone by local criminals and brought to Dublin. During the trial, there was evidence that the guns were swapped for heroin.

Another shotgun found in January 2000 was also under the control of the accused.

Mr Justice McKechnie said the guns found their way "through some route" into the possession of Mr Desmond.

He said it was a very serious charge and the sentence had to reflect the seriousness of the charge". The court heard that Mr Desmond was previously convicted of robbery - in which the victim was stabbed in the knee and forehead -and assaulting three police officers by ramming them in a stolen car.

Mr Justice McKechnie told the court he could find no mitigating circumstances to justify any reduction in the sentence. He backdated it to June 12 2000, when the accused was taken into custody.

Mark Desmond had sacked his legal team before the trial and defended himself throughout the case. According to sources close to the case, Mark Desmond was tutored in Portlaoise Prison by Patrick 'Dutchy' Holland, the man named in court as the killer of journalist Veronica Guerin.

At the close of evidence, Desmond invoked a little used section of the 1984 Criminal Justice Act which allows a defendant representing himself to prevent the prosecution making a closing speech.

Outside court today, relatives of Patrick Murray and Darren Carey expressed grave disappointment with the length of the sentence.