Man jailed for threats to kill garda and ram car into house

A man has been jailed after threatening gardaí at a Garda station, claiming he would ram a car into the home of an officer, and later calling the fire brigade to claim he had set his house on fire with his mother inside it.

James O’Sullivan, aged 49, of Caherdaniel, Bantry, Co Cork, went to the local Garda station on the evening of January 14 and threatened a named member of the force, saying he would kill him and ram a car into the front of the Garda’s home.

He left but later made “menacing calls” to the station making similar threats, also telling gardaí he would burn down his own house, with his mother inside it.

Bantry District Court yesterday heard that he then contacted the fire brigade and made a false report that his home was on fire and that his mother was inside.

When fire fighters arrived at the scene, Mr O’Sullivan produced a shovel and began banging it on the side of the fire engine.

Supt Brendan Fogarty, prosecuting, said gardaí were “under pressure” at the scene as they had to determine whether Mr O’Sullivan’s mother was in any danger while the defendant was acting very aggressively, and because the defendant had two large alsatian dogs.

Supt Fogarty said the named member of the force had been “living in fear”, having previously been assaulted in the toilet of a pub in Bantry by Mr O’Sullivan.

The court heard that at the time of the offences in January, the defendant was on bail in relation to earlier offences involving that Garda, and that the force had to take “special actions” to protect the Garda and his family.

The court heard Mr O’Sullivan has eight previous convictions and that he was sentenced to six months in prison last November for the assault on the named Garda — a matter now under appeal in the circuit court. Other convictions date back as far as 2002.

Mr O’Sullivan’s solicitor, Ray Hennessy, said his client was his mother’s principle carer and that the visit to the Garda station in January was to complain about a lack of Garda response to an assault allegedly committed on the defendant some four years ago.

Mr O’Sullivan said in that assault he sustained “horrendous” injuries including a broken nose and broken teeth, and he claimed the attack and other incidents, which he said were conducted by a local man, had even resulted in the doors of his mother’s house being glued shut.

He said he made 33 complaints to gardaí but “nothing was done about it” and at one point he had been forced to leave his home area in Bantry. “I would not expect anyone to live with what I went through,” he said.

Mr Hennessy said his client had also made a complaint to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC).

However, Supt Fogarty told the court it was the first time he had heard these details regarding an alleged attack on Mr O’Sullivan.

The court heard that the defendant had been undergoing psychiatric treatment since the alleged assault and in January Mr O’Sullivan’s medication had been changed.

But Judge James McNulty said the defendant appeared to have a history of irrational and uncontrolled behaviour and that last January he made “very specific and very serious threats” against a named Garda.

He sentenced Mr O’Sullivan to seven months in prison for threats to kill made at the Garda station; three months for making the false report to the fire brigade; and seven months for the threats made over the phone to gardaí — with the sentences to run concurrently. Mr Hennessy said his client would lodge an appeal.