Drug addict who shot victim twice in the head at close range jailed for 10 years

The Central Criminal Court heard that the defendant Sam Archbold (37) was under threat after failing to pay back a €2,000 debt.

Archbold, with an address at Commons Road, Clondalkin in Dublin 22 pleaded guilty earlier this year to the attempted murder of Andrew O’Brien at Cherrywood Grove, Clondalkin in Dublin 22 on April 8, 2022.

Mr O’Brien was hospitalised after suffering two gunshots to the face, which left him with a mouth full of shattered teeth and a hole in his throat.

A previous sentencing hearing heard Archbold was a passenger in Mr O’Brien’s car and had arranged to stop off under the pretext of collecting money to pay down a debt.

Andrew O’Brien said in his victim impact statement that he was shot in the face at close range while sitting in his car and that all of his teeth on the left side of his mouth were shattered and broken.

He said he has a large burn scar on his face and a hole remains down the side of his throat. “My speech is also affected as a result of my teeth and bone loss. I am forced to eat with the right side of my teeth all the time,” he said.

Passing sentence at the Central Criminal Court on Monday, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said the case was a “particularly vivid” illustration of how far wrong things can go when people become “enmeshed in criminality” through taking “so-called recreational drugs”.

He said it remained a “sad fact” that the crime had inflicted permanent damage on Mr O’Brien.

Mr Justice Hunt noted that the maximum sentence for attempted murder was life in prison with the lower range attracting a sentence of up to five years, the mid-range five to ten years, the upper range ten to 15 years and the truly egregious cases up to life.

Setting a headline sentence of 16 years for the offence, Mr Justice Hunt said he considered the “organised and deliberate” nature of this crime placed it in the “egregious category”.

The judge noted Mr Archbold had the benefit of previous good character and was “not of particular interest” to the gardaí prior to this incident. He said he thought it was likely the defendant became involved in the crime by way of “a chaotic and serious drug addiction”.

Mr Justice Hunt said Archbold was apparently homeless at the time of his arrest and said it was to his credit that he was able to work while in the throes of a serious drug habit. He said it was his view that Archbold’s plea of guilty, which was entered in March of this year, was the principal mitigating factor in the case.

He imposed a sentence of 12 years with the final two years suspended for a period of six years and backdated this to April 16, 2022 when Archbold went into custody. He also imposed a one-year supervision order from the date of his release.

At a previous sentencing hearing, Inspector Dara Kenny detailed the background of the incident, telling John Fitzgerald SC, prosecuting, that gardai were able to establish from CCTV footage and witnesses that Mr O’Brien had driven a Volkswagen Golf to a park beside Cherrywood Grove at 4.45pm on April 8.

While the Volkswagen Golf was parked up, a man identified as the defendant got out of the passenger seat of the vehicle and walked over to another car.Archbold was later seen moving at greater pace towards the Golf and shooting Mr O’Brien in the face through the open passenger side window.

Mr O’Brien got out of his car and made his way to a nearby house where he got assistance.

Counsel said that witnesses saw a man identified as Archbold dressed in dark clothing leaving the scene and said they heard two shots, described as two seconds apart. The defendant was seen running from the scene into the park and through a river after taking Mr O’Brien’s phone with him and his own phone, said counsel.

The victim’s phone was never recovered by gardai but the following day a Nokia phone was handed into Clondalkin Garda Station, which a witness had found in the park. “A number of people had rang that phone asking to speak to a ‘Sam’.

That phone was analysed and it was found that Archbold had phoned Mr O’Brien on four occasions,” said the barrister. The following day gardai received confidential information naming Sam Archbold.

Mr Fitzgerald said that Archbold’s house was searched on the night of April 9 but he was not there. Wet clothing was found that was consistent with the defendant having run through the river and firearms residue was found on them, he said.

Gardai conducted a search near the park where Archbold had been seen loitering and two days later a lunch box containing a revolver and ammunition was found.

The revolver was a British Bulldog revolver with six cartridges; four were full and two had been discharged. The ammunition was inside a ziplock bag contained within the lunch box.

The defendant’s fingerprints were found on the lunch box and ammunition.

Archbold was arrested on Grafton Street on the afternoon of April 11, three days after the shooting. He was arrested on 13 occasions and for the first nine interviews he mostly exercised his right to silence. In his first interview, Archbold told gardai: “I’ve never held a gun, I’ve never fired one”.

In his tenth interview, Archbold, who was presented with DNA, CCTV and mobile phone evidence, told gardai there were a few things he would like to clear up.

He added: “That’s me in the park, me who fired the shot, I went to a field and changed my clothes. I 100 percent didn’t intend to kill Andy, I never fired a gun before, it was supposed to be a warning”.

The defendant later told gardai that he had a drug problem, had built up a €2,000 debt and that someone was going to give him a loan but there had been issues getting it.

He said his “ma’s windows’ had been smashed up, some third party had given him a gun and repeated that he didn’t want to hit the victim in the face. “He goes on to say in relation to the second shot that this was also accidental,” said the Inspector.

The court heard that the first bullet entered Mr O’Brien’s face below the left nostril and he suffered seven fractured teeth. Mr Fitzgerald said the victim had cooperated with gardai in releasing his medical report but hadn’t provided a statement to gardai.

Mr O’Brien’s father described the psychological impact on his son in a report read to the court and said Andrew was extremely depressed when he was discharged from St James’s Hospital. “He is attending the GP, he suffers on a regular basis from flashbacks and is constantly thinking how someone tried to take his life,” he said.

The victim said he cannot contemplate that someone planned to end his life by shooting him in the head and that he was forced to sell his car when it was returned to him, as he couldn’t bring himself to drive it again.

In his submissions to the court, defence counsel Seamus Clarke SC said his client accepted he had drug addiction problems and that his life was very chaotic in the six months prior to this offence with things escalating quite quickly by taking crack cocaine. Archbold, he said, had received threats for not paying debts owed.