NOTORIOUS monster Brian Rattigan has been jailed for NINE years for the manslaughter of Declan Gavin

Brian Rattigan, 38, formerly of Cooley Road, in Drimnagh has been in prison for most of his adult life and pleaded guilty last October to killing 21-year-old Declan Gavin.

3 Brian Rattigan was sentenced for killing Declan Gavin today Credit: Collins

Mr Gavin was stabbed to death outside an Abrakebabra fast-food restaurant on Crumlin Road in Dublin in the early hours of August 25, 2001.

He received two knife wounds, one to the hand but a fatal one to the heart.

Rattigan, who wrote a letter of apology to his mother asking for forgiveness, went on trial for his murder twice in 2009.

The first jury could not reach a verdict but a second jury convicted him. However, that conviction was successfully appealed in 2017.

The killing sparked the long-running Crumlin-Drimnagh feud which resulted in the deaths of 16 young men.

The thug showed no reaction as Judge Michael White backdated the sentence to October.

3 Declan Gavin died in 2001

The former gangland figure was due to go on trial for the crime again this month, but the State accepted his plea to manslaughter when he entered it on arraignment on October 22 last.

The convicted criminal also said on the same occasion that he was sorry to the victim’s family and anyone else he had hurt through his actions.

Judge White said Rattigan should serve the sentence from when he “unambiguously” offered a plea of guilty and that his letter of remorse to the Gavin family was “too little too late”.

3 Declan was stabbed to death outside Abrakebabra

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Prosecuting counsel Pauline Walley SC said at the sentence hearing last December that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had accepted a plea to manslaughter from Rattigan as the case’s “frailties” were likely to render the success of another murder trial “questionable”.

Rattigan has been in custody since 2003 and is currently serving a 17-year sentence imposed in 2013 for controlling the possession of drugs for sale or supply from “within the prison walls”.

This was backdated to 2008 and the expiration date was May 2025 but allowing for remission, Rattigan was due for release in November 2019.