High Court gives James 'Mago' Gately and partner four months to leave Dublin home

High Court reporters

James ‘Mago’ Gately and his partner have been given four months to vacate their family home, which the High Court has found to “overwhelmingly” derive from proceeds of crime.

Charlene Lam asked the High Court on Friday to let her and her three children remain in their house in Coolock, north Dublin, for another two years.

Her counsel, David Perry, requested “forbearance” from the judge and submitted a house move would be disruptive to her eldest son’s studies ahead of his Leaving Certificate exams next June. He said she is working to get her affairs into line.

The Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) has alleged Mr Gately has been linked to armed robberies, gangland murders and drug dealing but has not been convicted of serious offences.

Mr Justice Alexander Owens last June found, on the balance of probabilities, that Mr Gately and Ms Lam’s “exotic” lifestyles were subsidised with crime proceeds, while the “overwhelming” proportion of their equity in their home at Glin Drive also came from such funds.

The couple denied the allegations and argued their assets were acquired with legitimate funds.

Seeking the appointment of receivers to the Glin Drive house, the Cab, through its barrister David Dodd, said on Friday that the Gatelys should have been looking for new accommodation since at least last June, when the court delivered judgment. He said the Gatelys have the “absolute wherewithal” to find a rental property in their locality.

Ms Lam is “simply playing up” the concern about the Leaving Cert exam, which is an “emotional” matter as everybody wants to support a young person’s education, said Mr Dodd.

Mr Justice Owens said the best he could do for Ms Lam is give her until April 1st, from which point the Cab’s receiver will be able to take possession of the house and organise a sale. He noted the mortgage has not been paid since December 2023 and the house is not insured against damage.

He said that, “as much as I would like to allow you to stay until July”, he was persuaded that matters could have been progressed sooner as “the writing was on the wall from June”.

He reserved his decision on Ms Lam’s request for him to find that she has contributed more than €16,000 to the family home mortgage since April 2019 from legitimate earnings at her Bombshell Beauty by Charlene salon.

The bureau contested her claims and submitted that she continued to live beyond her means after this period.

The judge previously held that she should be given €5,000 from any proceeds of sale of the property in recognition of her having paid more than this amount towards the mortgage from legitimate means.

He was told Mr Gately has not worked since 2015 due to a threat on his life – related to the Kinahan-Hutch feud. The couple’s lawyers submitted that Ms Lam, as a self-employed beautician who has no connection with crime, pays general living expenses and the mortgage on the family home.

In his June ruling, Mr Justice Owens said the couple were “virtually never in the State”, but rather spent their time in airport terminals and on cruises of the South Seas and the Caribbean.

He believed all of this was funded with proceeds of crime, as was a Volkswagen Golf and a Rolex watch. This was also "overwhelmingly" the case for their home, which Mr Gately purchased for €125,000 and renovated for €440,000, he said.

Mr Gately was shot five times in May 2017 by the driver of a car that pulled up beside him at a petrol station on Clonshaugh Road. Kinahan gunman Caolan Smyth (31) has been convicted for his attempted murder.