Sentencing adjourned for Corkman accused of telling social worker 'I’m going to end your life'

Judge Mary Dorgan said that no less than frontline workers, social workers have to be able to do their work without being put in such fear. File picture: Larry Cummins

Social workers should be able to do their work without being put in fear, a judge said to a man who told one social worker after a court case relating to his child: “I’m going to end your life.” 

Judge Mary Dorgan said that no less than frontline workers, social workers have to be able to do their work without being put in such fear.

Sentencing of the accused man had been adjourned for a probation report on him and the probation officer reported that she did not see any further role for the probation service in dealing with the accused into the future.

Now at Cork District Court, Judge Dorgan has suggested that there must be some role for the probation service, particularly in terms of the possibility of a restorative justice approach. The judge asked that the probation officer in the case would come to court in person to address this possibility as the case was adjourned until May 15.

Detective Garda Dave Barry investigated the case where the accused man pleaded guilty to making the death threats.

In her victim impact statement, the social worker said:

When your life is threatened, it shakes you to your core, anxiously thinking if I was gone, who would care for my children because these are real moments of taking stock because the reality is one day a social worker will not return home as violence towards us and all working the front line increases.

Because of the possibility that identification of the parties would lead to identification of the defendant’s child in the court proceedings, there is a prohibition on naming them.

The social worker said the man rang her in a rage and threatened to kill her because she had been involved in a court case which led to the young family member being taken into care.

"I froze with fear as each message played out. When you hear ‘I’m going to end your life’ several times, expressed with such anger, that there was a visceral response in my body, my stomach turned, and I froze — possibly an hour passed before I could go in home and greet my family."

He was charged with assaulting the woman at Washington Street Courthouse on April 3, 2023. He was charged that on May 9, 2023, he made persistent phone calls to her without reasonable cause, and two counts that on May 9 he made a threat to the woman that he would kill her or cause serious harm.

The defendant first confronted the social worker outside Washington Street Courthouse and began waving his arms in her face in an angry manner on April 3, 2023, followed by the threatening calls a month later.

Threatening messages

In the first message he called her a liar and said that he would “blow you up” while in the second message, he threatened he would “take your life”, while in the third message he said she had taken something from him and he was now “going to take something from you”. 

In the fourth and final message that he left on the social worker’s phone, he threatened to kill her, saying that “you can do what you want, you can record it, you shit, but I’m telling you, I am going to take your life”.

Defence solicitor, Daithi Ó Donnabháin, said that his client had indicated within a fortnight of being charged that he would be pleading guilty, and with assistance, because he wasn’t hugely literate, had written a letter of apology to the social worker for the ordeal he had put her through.

The solicitor said that his client was acting as a parent for the child who was taken into care and he was deeply upset over his removal and on the day that he rang the social worker, he had been drinking all day, so much so that he had no recollection of making the threatening phone calls.

The accused said in court: “I am so sorry, I can’t believe that I did this – I was never in trouble before and I have never done anything like this before, it was the alcohol.”