Prepare to die, man warned women

These are the chilling words of Aidan Horan as he subjected his former partner, her mother and sister to a terrifying ordeal.

The 34-year-old former bouncer and martial arts fanatic imprisoned the three women in a bedroom, wounding them with a stun gun and telling them he was going to kill them.

Horan, of Bawnlee Court, Banduff, Mayfield, Co Cork, and Greenwood Estate in Togher, Cork, was yesterday jailed for six years for the violent attack.

Horan had a row with his former partner Olive Newman over access to their daughter. In a rage, he falsely imprisoned and assaulted Ms Newman, her sister Fiona

O’Flaherty and their mother Geraldine Newman at Mrs Newman’s home, also in Bawnlee Court.

He went to the house at 11am on October 30 last year, armed with a baseball bat, two knives and an illegal stun gun he bought in England.

At the height of the terrifying ordeal, Horan held the three women and his two-year-old daughter in an upstairs bedroom of the house. He struck the three women with the stun gun, hitting them with an electric voltage that knocked them over.

Horan told the terrified women: “This is D-day. Be prepared to die.”

The women pleaded with him to get a bottle downstairs for two-year-old Saoirse. When he was out they tried to barricade the door with a tumble dryer. But Horan blew the door off the hinges and then went wild with the bat, smashing ornaments and a television and pulling a light fitting out of the ceiling.

After 45 minutes he left the house. He was arrested a few hours later at his home nearby.

Geraldine Newman told Cork Circuit Criminal Court the attack left her physically and mentally scarred.

“My whole world had been turned upside down by this. I used to help Aidan in every way. I really made him feel at home in my house and I never expected this from him. It has left us in a terrible state. I thought Aidan was above this, I don’t think my life will ever be the same again, my life is wrecked.

“I’m looking after his daughter who he knows I love. I just can’t understand how he could do that to us. I’m marked from my neck down to my legs after the stun gun. I’m a prisoner in my own home. I changed the locks. I still get this horrible feeling when I go into that room. I even thought I would have to give up my house and move elsewhere.”

Olive’s sister, Fiona, said: “He told me I would not see my husband again and that I was going to die. I really believed I was going to die.”

The defendant, Horan, said: “I never meant for any of this to happen. I just want to get access to my daughter which wasn’t allowed to me. I did something that morning which I should never had done.”

The defendant paid €2,000 in compensation.

Judge Sean O’Donnabhain said: “The range of weapons he brought with him speaks for itself. He was leaving nothing to chance. He brought a variety of wicked weapons with him and he was willing to use them.”

The judge said Horan’s underlying propensity for violence was still uncontrolled and untreated.

It emerged at Cork Circuit Criminal Court that Horan bought the stun gun in England because he thought it would be useful in his work as a bouncer at a number of Cork city clubs.