Convicted IRA man gets 20 years for kidnapping

A twenty-year jail sentence was imposed today on a convicted IRA member for the kidnapping of Gary and Katie O’Donovan at their home in Rochestown, Cork.

Gerard Clarke, 38, of 2 St. John’s Terrace, Upper John Street, Cork, who has convictions from 1993 in Belfast Crown Court for IRA membership, kidnapping, attempted murder and firearms and explosives offences, was jailed for 20 years at Cork Circuit Criminal Court today.

His accomplice, Edward Gaffey, 33, from 22 Clontygora Court, Dundalk, County Louth, who was described as easily lead and with a list of much less serious previous convictions was given a 12-year sentence on the same charges.

"To me this was a very well planned operation to take people hostage in their own home in a terrorist type manner for financial gain,” Judge Patrick J. Moran said.

"I am of the view that what Mr and Mrs O’Donovan recounted was one of the most horrific and appalling episodes that any couple might experience in their lifetime," the judge said.

He referred to the hood being placed over Gary O’Donovan’s head and that the warning that they would be killed if the raiders did not get the money they wanted from the safe in the store room of Mr O’Donovan’s chain of off-licences.

Gaffey admitted his part in the crime when questioned by gardaí the day he was caught.

Clarke refused to answer any questions put to him by the investigating gardaí, he contested the case and only spoke on the seventh day of the trial of sparing the O’Donovan family any more sorrow.

Katie O’Donovan said: "I no longer feel safe in my own home. I suffer a lot from flashbacks of the whole thing. I fear for the safety of my children. I fear for my husband’s safety. If he does not return home I fear that he has been abducted."

Gary O’Donovan said: "Our whole world has been turned upside down. This was not an incident that happened over one or two minutes. Throughout five to six hours of incarceration in her own home it was a psychological battle, the aim being to terrorise and terrify myself and Katie 100 per cent."

Clarke and Gaffey were sentenced to twenty and twelve years respectively, each defendant getting two concurrent sentences on the charges of falsely imprisoning the couple.

Charges of threatening to kill or cause him serious harm to Gary O’Donovan at 7 Dewberry, Mount Oval Village, Rochestown, Cork, on May 2 and 3, and being in possession of a Colt .45 revolver and a stun gun were taken into account in both cases.