Man told to ‘get €50k or family would die’

A MAN on trial for trying to extort €50,000 from his father claims he was told to get the money after a drug deal went wrong, or he and his family would be killed.

Liam Ward, aged 32, of Rowan Heights, Drogheda, Co Louth, told gardaí he’d failed to pick up a car containing €50,000 cannabis outside a fast food restaurant in Dundalk and when the car disappeared, a dealer told him he would be shot for ripping him off.

Mullingar Circuit Court heard how he told gardaí he was taken to a house near Bettystown where he was assaulted, bound and gagged on February 13, 2007.

The next day his sister Brenda received photos of him, bound and gagged, with a sawn-off shotgun pointing at his head.

Accompanying the photos was a demand for the money and instructions not to contact gardaí or the next time they saw him would be in a casket.

Ms Ward and her father said they were terrified for Ward’s safety and went to the gardaí.

Her brother, who has been using drugs since he was 12, had often come to her when he needed money or help, she said. When her brother eventually spoke to her on the phone, she said he sounded terrified, telling her he was sorry for everything he had put them through. He said goodbye and that he loved her.

William Ward said he almost had a heart attack when he saw the photographs, and met gardaí at his bank in Tallaght, leaving with a brown envelope that appeared full of money but was actually full of newspaper. He broke down as he described how he had not believed his son could be capable of such an offence, but said Liam Ward had been hurt when his mother, who died in 2002, left him none of the money she was awarded after contracting Hepatitis C.

Judge Tony Hunt heard gardaí began following a car associated with him, which left Drogheda at the same time as Mr Ward Sr had agreed a handover in Dublin. Gardaí said they had seen Ward at an airport filling station, paying for petrol which the car driver had filled. They believed at that point that he was not under duress and Detective Garda Frank Bennett said Ward behaved like any other customer at the shop.

David Goldberg, defending, said his client denied the charge of demanding money with menaces and said he had been involved in the incident under duress, that he had been involved with very dangerous people.

The case continues today.