Teen pleads guilty to hijack

A motorist was threatened that he would be cut open during a hijacking as the lead from a phone charger was looped around his neck.

A teenager yesterday pleaded guilty to his part in two separate hijackings

Garda Gary Costello said that on November 5, 2013, the driver and his friend were sitting in his car outside Supermac’s in Charleville, Co Cork, having attended a welding class.

The accused, who was 16 at the time, got in to the car with an accomplice and demanded to be taken to Cork, threatening that an entire gang would arrive on the scene otherwise and that the driver and his friend would not get out of Charleville.

They drove to Cork and heard a noise that sounded like a flick-knife although they could not see it because it was dark.

Garda Costello said: “He threatened to cut the boys and said, ‘I will slit ye’. He picked up a phone charger and wrapped the lead of it around the driver’s neck and pulled him back with it. He slapped the driver and threatened to cut him open.”

The driver went as far as the McDonald’s where he managed to alert staff at the food hatch who contacted gardaí.

Judge Donagh McDonagh said: “The probation report says he did not make four appointments. That does not sound like someone who has done a volte face on his offending behaviour. That is as dismal a probation report as one can read.”

Niamh Stewart, defending, said he was off drink since November 2013 and was doing much better. He is living with his aunt and uncle because his mother and father are heroin addicts, Ms Stewart said.

The 17-year-old defendant testified: “I had a very bad alcohol problem, I was mixing with bad company, fellas that were a lot older than me at the time.”

Judge McDonagh said: “I will adjourn sentencing to June on condition that you engage with the Probation Service immediately, not tomorrow, now. You comply with every instruction they give you to the letter. That includes attending at any training centre or any place they send you to. The logic behind this is that they are there to help you. If you fail, the case is to be re-entered.

“Wrapping the cable of a charger around someone’s neck is about as dangerous a process as you could engage in. It is called a garrotte and was the preferred method of execution in Spain among other places. Crime of this nature is so serious it would have to attract a long custodial sentence.

“But that will not happen if you turn your life around. If you do not, you will only see sunlight through the bars of the prison window.”

In a similar crime committed by the same juvenile on October 5, 2013, the teenager and his accomplice got into a car at at Wilton Shopping Centre and forced the motorist to drive them to Charleville where they turned up the radio full and roared threats at the driver.

The injured party in that case said he suffered a mental breakdown as a result of the incident and was only now rebuilding confidence.