Notorious Alan Wilson is under active threat in prison and only interacts with rapist

The 42-year-old is housed on the C1 landing of the Midlands Prison in Co Laois and jail insiders say that the only other prisoner who he is on friendly terms with is a notorious rapist who cannot be named here for legal reasons because he is facing charges in relation to a hoax bomb call.

“No one else talks to Wilson it is as simple that, the convicted rapist is the only prisoner he interacts with – he is under active threat from multiple groupings and seems to have been disowned by all the crime groupings,” a jail insider explained.

“The wing in which he is housed is an isolation unit and he is on what is called a protection regime. He spends the vast majority of his time locked in his cell where he uses a computer which has no internet facility.

“He does use the gym which is on the landing but he is supervised at all times by a prison officer when doing this.

“When he has visitors to the jail and when he leaves the landing, he is escorted by jail staff – normally two or three officers. The threat level is very severe.

“The landing Wilson is on is almost an extension of the Central Mental Hospital as most of the prisoners on it suffer from mental health issues,” the source said.

In June, 2019, Wilson required hospital treatment after being sliced in the head with a blade while being assaulted by three other inmates in the B- Base of Mountjoy Prison.

This week Wilson attempted to portray himself as a reformed character who spends his time in prison “writing a book and poetry” among other things but the truth about how the mobster is serving his jail time is very different.

Sundayworld.com can reveal that since entering the prison system in November, 2017, the 42-year-old mobster has been the subject of serious disciplinary sanctions on around 10 occasions with the vast majority of these being for chilling threats to jail staff.

In just over four years while serving time in three different prisons, Wilson has been handed around ten P19 reports which are handed to prisoners who have broken prison regulations and can lead to various punishments, depending on the severity of the offence.

Wilson was jailed for ten years yesterday at the Special Criminal Court for his role in a murder conspiracy that led to three completely innocent men being shot outside the Player's Lounge pub on Dublin’s northside in July, 2010.

Wilson was acting on the instructions of a dissident republican group led by now deceased IRA man Sean Hunt when he sourced the firearms and vehicles used in the shooting and provided information about the getaway route and where to burn out the getaway car.

This is not the first time that Wilson is suspected of being involved in a gun attack on innocent people.

The thug who is from New Street Gardens in the capital’s south inner city was previously arrested and questioned about the murder of tragic Darren Cogan (22) shot and fatally wounded in a pub in Inchicore on June 25, 2011.

Gardai believe the murder was a case of mistaken identity and the shooting happened an hour after two men entered the pub and began shouting, ‘where are all the rats.’

They left the pub but returned shortly after midnight and discharged a number of shots one of which hit Mr Cogan in the chest and resulted in his murder.

This murder remains unsolved as officially does the shocking murder of teenager Marioara Rostas – a crime which Wilson was acquitted of by a jury following a lengthy trial in 2014.

Despite Wilson being cleared of the murder charge, gardai are not looking for anyone else in relation to the savage 2008 crime.

The 18-year-old victim was abducted from a street in the capital’s south inner city on January 6 2008, but her body was not found for just over four years.

It is suspected that she was brutally sexually assaulted before being fatally shot four times in the head and her body was then buried in the Dublin/Wicklow Mountains.

Before sentencing on Wednesday, Wilson's lawyers had asked the court to take into consideration the "suffering" and "harm" that Wilson had endured due to being accused of murdering the teenager.

His lawyer told the Special Criminal Court that the accusation had caused "hardship due to the portrayal of Wilson in the public eye over a lengthy period of time."

Counsel also said that his client now intends to live an "honest life" and keeps himself busy in prison by writing a book and composing poetry.

Meanwhile less than seven months after Mariorara was murdered, Alan Wilson and his cousin Eric ‘Lucky’ Wilson were investigated for being involved in the suspected torture murder of northside drug dealer David "Babyface" Lindsay and his pal Alan Napper in Northern Ireland.

A PSNI search of a house near Newry, Co Down, revealed traces of Lindsay's blood, but neither his nor Napper's remains have ever been found and they are suspected of being brutally tortured before being shot dead.

Alan’s cousin Eric is now serving a 23 year jail term in Spain for the gun murder of an Englishman in a Spanish pub while another of his cousins Keith Wilson, who is Eric’s brother, is serving a life sentence here for the gun murder of Finglas criminal Daniel Gaynor in August, 2010 who was shot dead in front of his girlfriend and two children.

Another of Alan’s cousins John Wilson, a brother of Eric and Keith, was shot dead in a gangland hit outside his home at Cloverhill Road, Ballyfermot, in September, 2012. John was previously arrested as part of the investigation into the Player’s Lounge shooting.

When Alan Wilson was released from jail in 2017 after serving a seven-year sentence for a meat cleaver attack, gardai were certain that the criminal who has always been considered a “lone ranger” would align himself with one of the factions involved in the bitter Hutch/Kinahan feud.

They were not wrong and within weeks he became embroiled in a major murder plot on behalf of the Kinahan cartel with another of his cousins Luke Wilson.

But the plot was foiled by a massive surveillance operation by gardai and led to the arrests of both cousins and a number of other criminals in October, 2017.

In 2019, Alan Wilson pleaded guilty to conspiring to murder Gary Hanley at a location within the State between September 15 and November 6, 2017.

He was due for release from that sentence in May next year but instead he will now serve at least another seven and half years in jail for his involvement after being handed a ten year sentence yesterday for his role in the Player’s Lounge shooting.

Ms Justice Tara Burns, presiding at the Special Criminal Court on Wednesday said Wilson was involved in a "highly sophisticated, meticulously planned attack on a Sunday in July in front of a large group of civilians out socialising."

Real IRA boss Alan Ryan who was shot dead two years later as part of a separate criminal dispute was the intended target of that murder attempt.

Long-term career Ballyfermot based criminal Sean Hunt, also known as The Smuggler, had ordered the hit as part of a bitter internal dissident Republican dispute and he enlisted Alan Wilson for the botched murder bid.

Ms Justice Burns said the attack had left two of the three victims with life-long injuries including brain damage to one of them, leaving him forever reliant on the daily support of his family.

Wilson had pleaded not guilty to the attempted murders of Brian Masterson, Wayne Barrett and Austin Purcell at The Player's Lounge Public House, Fairview Strand, Fairview, Dublin 3 on July 26, 2010. Those attempted murder charges have now been officially dropped after the Director of Public Prosecutions entered a nolle prosequi.

Instead he pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to murder persons unknown on July 26, 2010, contrary to Section 71 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006.

He also pleaded guilty to an offence under the Firearms Act of possession of a .38 calibre Smith & Wesson revolver and a .32 calibre Zastava semi-automatic pistol on dates between July 24 and July 26, 2010, in circumstances that give rise to the reasonable inference that he possessed them for an unlawful purpose.

Wilson’s lawyer said that a secret garda recording of Wilson in 2017 allegedly claiming that he had carried out the shooting at the Player's Lounge was "bravado".

He said: "He was bigging himself up in the company of those with him on the day."

During the trial it emerged that the National Surveillance Unit had planted listening devices in two cars that Wilson was known to be using as he planned with others the murder of Gary Hanley.

In those recordings he was allegedly heard admitting to the attempted murders at the Player's Lounge in 2010. In one of them, Wilson said: "Remember the shooting at the Player's Lounge; I done that."

In another, Wilson expressed amazement at how one of the men survived, saying: "One of them, right in the forehead and five times in the body, it's amazing how the c***s pull through it, like."