Addict complimented garda on 'good work'

A drug addict who complimented a female garda on the force's 'good work' when he served her and others while pretending to be an Esso shop assistant has been jailed for five years.

Wayne Mulligan, aged 25, of Dolphin House, Rialto had earlier locked a 21-year-old female assistant in a storeroom and donned Esso staff uniform to fool the customers who didn't realise he was robbing the premises.

Mulligan pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to false imprisonment and robbery at the Esso Service Station, Bull Wall, Clontarf on August 29, 2001.

Judge Frank O'Donnell suspended the last two years of the sentence which would date from the court hearing as he did not want Mulligan to be released from prison until February 19, 2006.

He also noted that Mulligan's urine analysis report showed him testing positive for drugs. "I don't know where he is getting it from, but he is getting it in prison", said Judge O'Donnell.

Garda John Delaney told prosecuting counsel Mr Dominic McGinn BL that Mulligan had been caught on security camera and was arrested on September 13, 2001 when gardaí spotted him on the street.

An earlier search of his house produced nothing of evidential value.

Garda Delaney said Mulligan came into the shop and asked for cigarettes just a few minutes after the 21-year-old assistant opened it around 8:30am.

He then jumped over the counter and pushed her back into the chair before he pulled out a six inch knife with which he threatened he would "split" her.

Garda Delaney said Mulligan demanded money and then forced her to the back of the shop where he ordered her to open the office. She did not have the office key and he pushed her into the cigarettes store room.

He then demanded her shoes and left her in the store-room with a newspaper stand against the door to hold it shut.

Garda Delaney said that through a little gap in the door the shop assistant could just about see Mulligan moving around. By now he was wearing an Esso fleece shirt and she heard him serving customers.

Shortly afterwards he returned to the storeroom and she refused to tell him her name. She heard him putting cigarettes into a plastic bag and when it went quiet she assumed he had left.

Garda Delaney said she managed to push her way out of the room and went out into the shop but found he was still there.

The young woman told gardaí he "went mad" at the sight of her, threatened to kill her and pushed her back into the room, before shutting the door again.

When the shop went quiet again, she opened the door a second time and found he had gone. She noticed that a number of cigarettes, money and phone cards were missing from the shop.

Garda Delaney said the total loss caused amounted to just over IR£1500. He had taken 5,100 cigarettes, IR£249 in cash and IR£300 worth of phone cards.

Defence counsel, Ms Marie Torrens BL, said her client had been "out of his mind" on drugs at the time. She recalled that Mulligan was sentenced to five years on June 5, 2002 by Judge O'Donnell for a spate of offences.

Ms Torrens said that even though the judge had asked the court then if there were any outstanding matters regarding Mulligan before he imposed the sentence, no one had been aware at the time of the robbery and false imprisonment at the Esso station.

She said it was not her client's fault that this crime "had slipped the net", and asked the court not to impose a sentence longer than the five year sentence Mulligan was currently serving, which would end on June 5, 2005.