Heroin addict gets eight years for car hi-jack and false imprisonment

A Dublin heroin addict who held a blood-contaminated syringe barrel to a woman’s neck in front of her child has be sentenced to eight years for unlawfully taking her car and other serious offences.

Cathy Ford had parked her car in a multistory lot on Christmas Eve 2008 and turned to face her seven-year-old son in the back when Joe Shannon (aged 38) grabbed her hair from behind and put the syringe barrel on her neck.