A voluntary patient at a psychiatric unit who was coming off drugs threatened to stab a nurse who challenged him for allegedly trying to supply drugs to another patient.

A Corkman who had previously received a three-year suspended jail term, for mugging an 81-year-old woman, risked having to serve the sentence after burgling the home of a garda.

The daughter of an elderly woman whose life was destroyed after a mugging has criticised a judge for handing down a suspended sentence to the mugger, who has more than 80 previous convictions.