A MAN who survived being shot in the head and chest in a Limerick gun attack this Monday pleaded guilty in court to causing a motorcyclist’s death by dangerous driving five years ago.
Daniel Phillips (35), of Crecora Avenue, Ballinacurra Weston, Limerick, appeared before Limerick Circuit Criminal Court where he admitted one count of dangerous driving causing the death of Maurice Fehilly.
Mr Fehilly (54), from Seskin, Kilsheelan, County Tipperary, formerly of Clonmel, suffered fatal injuries in a collision on the N24 at Drombane, Dromkeen, County Limerick, on January 4, 2020.
Mr Phillips also pleaded guilty before Judge Sinead McMullan to one count dangerous driving causing serious bodily harm to Thomas Traynor, at the same location on the same date.
Phillips, represented by senior defence counsel Mark Nicholas and Antoinette Simon BL, was remanded on continuing bail for evidence to be heard on March 7.
Mr Nicholas told the court that Phillips continues to suffer the impact of a “very significant head injury he sustained 15 years ago”.
Phillips was shot in the head and chest as he sat in a car at John’s Square in Limerick City on May 24, 2010.
In 2012, Shane Mason, of Sean Hueston Place in Limerick City, was jailed for 16 years after a jury at the Central Criminal Court found him guilty of Phillips’ attempted murder.
An eye-witness told the court they saw Mason dismount a bicycle and remove a handgun from the waistband of his trousers and fire six shots into Phillips’ car.
Mason, who had 179 previous convictions, later survived two separate gun attacks, in January and May 2011.
After being shot, Phillips spent a month in a coma in hospital and had to re-learn how to walk.
In March 2021, Phillips was jailed for five and half years with the final 18 months suspended after he admitted in court to possessing a homemade .22 calibre gun and 88 rounds of ammunition, in 2020.
Phillips had thrown a bag containing the gun and bullets from a car that was being pursued by Gardai on the outskirts of Limerick City on March 26, 2020.
Phillips sped away from Gardaí after they attempted to stop his vehicle on the Shelbourne Road in Limerick.
He drove at speed through housing estates, drove on the wrong side of the road, broke a number of red lights, and was eventually stopped by Gardaí at Parteen in south east county Clare.
Gardaí were alerted to the bag containing the gun and ammunition by an eagle-eyed passerby.
The sentencing judge, Tom O’Donnell, now retired, said at the time that Phillips had aligned himself “to a serious criminal element” and had been “holding” the bag “to repay a drugs debt”.
“He was reckless in the extreme and it was fortunate nobody was injured,” the judge said.
At the time, Judge O’Donnell noted that Phillips had been left with “serious cognitive issues with his short-term memory” after he was shot in 2010.
In addition to the four-year sentence for having the gun and ammunition, Phillips was given a concurrent six month sentence for dangerous driving.
