Inmate gets eight-year sentence over prison siege

One of six inmates who held five Mountjoy Prison officers hostage during a siege in the Dublin jail almost 10 years ago was today sentenced to eight years imprisonment.

Joseph Cooper, 33, with an address in Manchester, England, was part of the gang of prisoners who threatened the warders with strangulation and blood-filled syringes over a 53-hour period in January 1997.