A Monaghan man who used the proceeds of an illegal immigrant smuggling operation, which resulted in the deaths of 39 people in 2019, has had a court order to confiscate his Tyholland home thrown out. Ronan Hughes of Leitrim Silverstream, Tyholland, Co Monaghan. pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of the 39 victims and was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the UK. He was extradited from Ireland for his role in the incident, when two of his employees took part in transporting the 39 victims in an airtight lorry from France to Essex.
In the British Crown Court case that followed, it was established Ronan Hughes benefitted by around £182,000 or €213,500 from that enterprise and he was ordered to pay this amount to families of the deceased. The court established that Ronan Hughes had around €65,000 in cash and assets at the time and a confiscation order for the remainder was made against the house he built on his parents' farmland and which is home to his wife and children.
In 2021, a court financial investigator valued the house €624,000 but his wife, Michelle, produced documentation to the court which valued it at €350,000. Based on a 50 per cent share of the family home Hughes was ordered to pay €175,000 to the court. However, issues arose over the ownership of his family home when Ronan Hughes' mother, Catherine, appealed the order stating the house could not be sold because she had sworn an affidavit that her son only had her permission to live on the land but, that the land did not belong to him. Yesterday, the three-judge court of appeal in the UK ruled there was insufficient evidence that Hughes had property interest over the land and instructed the Crown Court to engage in a fresh determination of Hughes’s interest in the house.
