Andrew O’Donovan of Butlersgift, Drimoleague, County Cork, was given an 18-month suspended jail term for sexual assault — his first criminal conviction of any kind.

There may be an element of people trafficking in the case where a 32-year-old Vietnamese woman is charged with cultivating cannabis at luxury lakeside home, Tinarana House.

A Dublin couple who used forged documents to apply for a mortgage because they believed they would never qualify otherwise for a housing loan one have been spared a jail sentence.

A Cork man facing a three-month jail term yesterday for masturbating behind two women visiting the city two years ago has pleaded for one last chance to co-operate with the probation service to avoid jail.

A 43-year-old west Clare man has escaped jail over his possession of a "disgusting" book which was the first book to be banned here by the censors in almost two decades.

A 41-year-old Shannon native has had to move house twice since his child pornography downloading offences were made public.

An 18-year-old childminder told gardaí that she unintentionally broke the arm of her one-year-old baby niece when trying to frighten the baby in order to distract her from crying.

A man who previously won best dog handler at Crufts is facing prison for three knife-point muggings carried out to feed a drug addiction.

A man in custody for an alleged assault on a pensioner has received two new charges arising out of the same incident and offered apologies when they were put to him by gardaí.

A Corkman who was sentenced in his absence last week to seven years in prison for raping and sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy over a period of two years has been jailed.

A 65-year-old man has received a partially-suspended sentence for sexually abusing his partner’s granddaughter over several years.

The boy accused of luring Anastasia Kriegel to her death told gardaí his co-accused said to him and his friend that he was planning to kill the 14-year-old schoolgirl.

One of the boys who denies murdering Anastasia Kriegel told gardaí he saw his co-accused "raping" the 14-year-old schoolgirl, the Central Criminal Court has heard.

One of the boys accused of murdering Anastasia Kriegel broke down crying as he described hearing Ana scream after he said he left her at an abandoned house with Boy A, the Central Criminal Court has heard.

A woman on trial, charged with murdering her boyfriend, told gardaí that she was acting in self-defence when the knife in her hand killed him.

Data from a phone belonging to one of the two boys accused of Anastasia Kriegel's murder contained search engine references to "abandoned places in Lucan" and "the 15 most gruesome torture methods in history," the Central Criminal Court has heard.

A Dublin credit union employee who stole up to €395,000 over a decade from the lender has been jailed for 18 months.

One of the two boys who denies murdering schoolgirl Anastasia Kriegel told a garda he believed that injuries the other accused said he suffered in an assault by older boys were actually inflicted by Ana.

One single blow from a large iron bar to the back of a man’s head was likely to have been the cause of death, a pathologist has testified in the Fermoy murder trial.

A woman whose humanist marriage was described as "mumbo-jumbo" and "away with the fairies" by a district court judge has had her four-month jail term lifted on appeal.

A man who convinced a child to play sexualised games of truth or dare and later coerced her into sexual intercourse has been jailed for 18 months.

A builder, a lawyer and a detective talk with Rita de Brún about the conmen who call door-to-door.

A Co Clare man hospitalised his frail 79-year-old mother, already suffering from the lung disease, Emphysema after assaulting her at her home.

Sentencing of pop singer Rihanna's former security chief for harassing a garda with threatening text messages has been postponed pending a Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) investigation into his arrest.

A Cork man drove aggressively through a red light killing a French man in Cork city, then drove off and fled the country, and today he was jailed for eight years and banned from driving for 40 years.

Gardaí in Limerick have expressed fears that "a bloody feud" will erupt between rival factions following a shooting last Tuesday, in which a man and a juvenile were injured.

A 50-year-old man set fire to his family home with his four young children inside but he got them out before the fire took off and went back into it alone in a suicide attempt, writes Liam Heylin.

A Cork man who told gardaí he had gone to Monaghan for “a drinking session” and did not know there was half-a-tonne of fertilizer in the van he was driving has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years imprisonment for IRA membership.

Threats to cut the heads off Jews were allegedly made by a 39-year-old man dressed in dark robes and carrying the Koran who appeared before Cork District Court today.

A mobile ice cream van, which sold ice-lollies and cones to children around parks and sports venues, was being used as a cover for a major drugs distribution business, Limerick circuit criminal court heard today.

A man has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a Spanish visitor in the toilets of a McDonald's restaurant in Cork city.

A man has avoided jail after he stole mor ethan €10,000 from the organisation which runs the annual Gay Pride Parade while he worked there as financial director.

A robber, whose accomplice smashed the windscreen of an off-duty garda car’s with a samurai sword, has avoided a jail term at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Cross examination has been continuing at a murder trial in the Central Criminal Court of a detective dealing with CCTV footage of suspects.

The trial of four men accused of having equipment for printing counterfeit currency has been adjourned until Tuesday after new information about a fifth suspect in the case was furnished to the defence.

A man accused of murdering his ex-fiancée’s baby seven years ago has no previous convictions, a court has heard.

The jury in the Shane Geoghegan murder trial has been given a demonstration of how the gun used to murder the Garryowen rugby player could be loaded and unloaded.

Sharon Stone obtained a restraining order against a man who police say was found in her home earlier this month, claiming the home was given to him by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

More charges could be brought against a defrocked priest accused of possession of thousands of pornographic images of children, some as young as two, a court heard today.

Dublin criminal Stephen 'Rossi' Walsh who is currently serving a ten-year sentence for rape has received a further three years in prison for simulating sex on a seven-year-old girl over twenty years ago.

A 21-year-old man told gardaí that after a lifetime of being beaten by his father, he finally flipped and killed him with a spade, the Central Criminal Court heard.

A PRIEST who removed the clothes and touched the genitals of a teenage boy at Confession has been given an 18-month suspended sentence.

A teenage boy who went to confession, had his clothes removed and his genitals touched by a priest today saw the culprit being given an 18-month suspended sentence.

A retired secondary school principal was given a ten-month jail sentence today for having 289 child pornographic images and six such video files on his computer two years ago.