Three years for man who decapitated birds

A young Skerries alcoholic who broke into an aviary and killed 12 "unusual and exotic display birds" by pulling their heads off has been given a three-year sentence by Judge Patricia Ryan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Glen Conroy (aged 21) had drunk 12 cans of beer and a litre of vodka when he and an accomplice broke into Newbridge House in Donabate, which contains an aviary for exotic and rare birds.

Conroy, of Mourne View, also "kept sketch" for an accomplice while he burgled a 92-year-old man’s home.

Conroy was on bail at the time of the second burglary for robbing a 52-year-old Swords mother and was jailed for three years for that crime last year. This new sentence is consecutive to that term and will begin in May 2009.

Detective Garda Aidan McGuire said mutilated and killed 12 "invaluable and irreplaceable" birds worth €2,670 and several of them cannot be replaced because it is forbidden to import them due to the bird flu epidemic in Asia. Four birds also escaped from their enclosures and were not recovered.

Conroy a father-of-one, pleaded guilty to burglary and two counts of criminal damage on April 13, 2006. He also pleaded guilty to another burglary in Skerries and unlawful interference with a car on December 15, 2006.

Judge Ryan had adjourned the case last December to give him "an opportunity to get his act together whether he likes it or not." She noted today that he had not taken this opportunity to address his addictions.

Judge Ryan said she had to take into account the "violent way that the birds were treated" resulting in their decapitition and the fact that they were irreplaceable.

She imposed concurrent sentences totalling three years which are consecutive to the sentence he is presently serving and she suspended the final year on strict conditions.

Det. Gda McGuire told prosecuting counsel, Mr Paul Carroll BL, that Conroy suffered from ADHD and had a "serious drink problem and propensity for violence".

He had 38 previous convictions including ones for firearms offences, burglary, assault and robbery.

Garda Declan McGarvey told Mr Carroll that Conroy acted as a look out while an accomplice broke into a 92-year-old man’s home as he slept and took his car keys. The pair took his car and caused €3,000 damage to it.

Det. Gda McGuire said the night watchman at Newbridge House saw two youths on CCTV as they smashed the fence of the aviary and pull the heads off the birds. He saw that one youth was stripped to the waist and drinking from an bottle. They caused €160 worth of damage to the aviary fence.

Conroy and his accomplice then left the aviary and gardaí and staff arrived to find the 12 dead birds.

The gardaí recognised Conroy on the CCTV and he was interviewed about the break-in when arrested on another matter several days later.

He told gardaí he did it because he was drunk and did not remember killing the birds until told by a friend the next day. He said "he snapped their necks and gave them a few boots".

Defence counsel, Mr Damien Colgan BL, said his client was abused as a child and had received very little formal education to the extent that he is unable to read a newspaper.