Gilligan gets two years over threat to kill
The Court of Criminal Appeal, which last month quashed an earlier five-year sentence on Gilligan for the offences, yesterday imposed a two-year sentence to run consecutively with the 20 years sentence Gilliganis serving for drugs offences.
The new sentence means that Gilligan could be due for release from prison in 2013.
The Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the five-year sentence after finding it was not proportionate when combined with the 20-year sentence he is serving for importing cannabis resin.
Yesterday, Ms Justice Fidelma Macken, presiding at the three-judge court, said it was the court’s considered view that the appropriate sentence to be imposed was two years’ imprisonment.
Gilligan, aged 54, was originally given the five-year sentence for the two offences of threatening to kill two prison officers just one week after he was jailed for the drugs offences in 2001.
Yesterday, his counsel Michael O’Higgins SC told the court a report from the Governor of Portlaoise Prison showed that from January 2002 until now there have been no disciplinary reports of any sort in relation to any member of the prison staff concerning Gilligan.
The court was told Gilligan had told prison officers Martin Ryan and Declan O’Reilly he would kill them and their families after he had a row with them over the opening of the prison tuck shop. The prison officers had refused to open the tuck shop after Gilligan demanded to buy sweets for his lawyers who were waiting for a meeting with him.
