Priest who hired men to issue death threats loses sentence appeal

A priest jailed for hiring men who said they were from the Continuity IRA to issue death threats and intimidate his nephew into dropping a legal action he was planning against him, has lost an appeal against sentence.

Francis Kelleher, aged 60, who had been residing in Cork City, had pleaded guilty to four counts of coercion in relation to compelling his nephew to abstain from doing an act he had a lawful right to do on dates between June 2012 and January 2013.

He was sentenced at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to four years imprisonment by Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin on April 30, 2015.

Dismissing Kelleher’s appeal against the severity of his sentence yesterday, Mr Justice Alan Mahon said an attempt to stop an individual from pursuing legal proceedings was a very serious matter. In this case, the threats were “particularly nasty” and caused great fear for Kelleher’s nephew and his family.

The fact that Kelleher utilised the name of the Continuity IRA for the purpose of instilling in his victim the maximum amount of fear made the offence “particularly reprehensible”.

Thomas Creed, defending, said his client was effectively “a broken man”. He had lost his work of administering to the sick in hospital, had lost his livelihood and lost his dwelling — it had been provided by the diocese.

Mr Creed submitted the Circuit Court judge should have suspended a portion of his client’s sentence.

While four years may have been an the upper end of the scale, Mr Justice Mahon said the sentence was within the judge’s discretion having regard to the number of offences and their nature.

The judge said no error in principle had been found and dismissed the appeal.