THIS is the man shot and threatened by criminals linked to 'Fat' Freddie Thompson -- and now forced to flee the country.
Crumlin man Karl Fay (20) from Lismore Drive was set up by his own associates and almost murdered after being shot in a park in leafy Milltown, south Dublin, on the evening of April 7 last.
After being targeted in the incident, the young criminal stumbled into the well-known Dropping Well pub covered in blood and fell on the floor in front of dozens of shocked customers.
Fay has made a full recovery after spending weeks being treated in hospital but has now decided to flee Dublin, the Herald can reveal.
Sources have revealed that on the night that he was shot, Fay was driven to the park in Milltown on the back of a motorbike by a middle-aged criminal from the Crumlin area.
It is understood that Fay trusted the veteran gangster -- who has a number of serious convictions and whose sons are heavily involved in gangland crime. They are linked to the local crime gang in the area that is headed by 'Fat' Freddie Thompson.
When Fay was dropped off at the park, he was ambushed in broad daylight on a sunny evening and shot with a small handgun, possibly a .22 calibre pistol.
Sources believe that Fay knows the identity of his attackers but has refused to tell gardai who they are.
Despite this, a number of arrests have been made in the case and sources believe that those responsible for targeting Fay will do so again.
"There is some indication that Karl Fay might return home in the next few weeks and relocate away from Crumlin to elsewhere in Ireland but the unfortunate truth is that this young man will not be safe wherever he is.
"The people that want to get him are very serious individuals and they will stop at nothing," a source explained.
The most likely motive for the gun attack is that Fay was trying to "move away" from some of his associates who have links to 'Fat' Freddie Thompson's drugs organisation.
Fay and an older associate of his had been previously charged with the July 2008 murder of a man in Crumlin who died after being beaten with a snooker cue and a golf club.
However, the murder trial collapsed at the Central Criminal Court in October, 2009, after a 12-year-old key witness said he was unable to identify the killers.
In a statement previously read in court by the prosecution, the boy had told gardai he recognised one of the two men he saw that night.
The case against Fay and the other man was based on the eyewitness evidence of three young brothers and during the trial the boy's mother had denied during legal argument that the family were offered a €20,000 bribe not to give evidence.
She made this denial because earlier in the trial, a garda had given evidence that an anonymous caller claimed the family had been offered a bribe by the family of Karl Fay.
A month after the prosecution entered a nolle prosequi in the murder case, Fay was acquitted of obstructing a garda from carrying out a drug search.
Last July, Fay was jailed for five months, banned from driving for six years and fined €1,500 after being caught driving without insurance on dozens of occasions.
The court heard that Fay had a large number of previous convictions, including 13 for no insurance, 15 for no driving licence and eight for dangerous driving.
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