Jury discharged after failing to reach verdict in tiger kidnapping trial
The jury in the trial of a man accused of being involved in a tiger kidnapping has been discharged having failed to reach a verdict.
Stefan Saunders (aged 34) of Hazelbury Park, Blanchardstown had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to robbing €134,000 from Reginald Shannon on January 4, 2010 and to falsely imprisoning him, his mother, Angela Shannon, and a child at O’Connell Gardens on Bath Avenue on the same date.
The jury of six women and six men had been considering its verdict for over nine and half hours on day-13 of the trial when Judge Patricia Ryan asked the members if they would reach a verdict given extra time.
The foreperson indicated that they would not. They were then discharged after Judge Ryan told them to mark the issue paper “disagreement”.
She adjourned the case until next week when the State will indicate if it intends to order a re-trial.
Mr Shannon, a cash-in-transit van driver for Brinks Allied told the jury during the trial that he was approached by armed men while out walking his dog one morning before work. He was then escorted back to his family home where his mother and a child were still sleeping.
Mr Shannon was then forced to drive a Renault Kangoo around Dublin and ultimately take cash from colleagues on O’Connell Street, while his mother and the child were driven around the south Dublin area in a Toyota Verso having been bundled into the car and a blanket put over their heads.
They were released after Mr Shannon delivered the cash, under instruction, to the Skylon Hotel in Drumcondra.
Earlier Remy Farrell SC, prosecuting, told the jury that this crime was “a very real plan to carry out a very serious kidnap” and that “Mr Saunders is one of those people intimately involved in both the planning and perhaps the execution of the robbery”.
