A DISTRICT Court judge has described as “absolutely staggering” the number of people on prescribed medication appearing before the court in Cork — as he was dealing with a case of a man armed with half a hedge-clippers.

A DISTRICT judge in Cork declared that he was getting more and more concerned about the significant deterioration of public order in certain parts of the city.

A chronic heroin addict grandfather who was “groomed into crime from the age of eight” by his own father has been given an eight-year sentence for a string of burglaries by Judge Katherine Delahunt.