Court hears woman sent ‘implied threats’ to Simon Harris and his family

Court hears garda evidence that six social media messages to Simon Harris contained implied threats of harm to him and his family

Thu, 20 Nov, 2025 - 11:55

Gráinne Ní Aodha, PA

A woman has appeared in court charged with making threats to Tánaiste Simon Harris and his family.

Sandra Barry, 40, with an address at Tor an Ri in Balgaddy, Lucan in Dublin, appeared at the Criminal Courts of Justice charged with one offence of threatening or grossly offensive communication to Mr Harris with intent to cause harm on August 30.

Mr Harris, who became finance minister this week, was previously minister for foreign affairs and defence.

Detective Garda Richard Markey said Ms Barry was charged at 9.03am on Thursday and made no reply to the charge after caution.

He told the court that the messages sent on social media were of a “threatening nature to the injured party, threatening violence towards himself or his family”.

He said that they were not “explicit threats” but were “implied threats”.

“Something along the lines of, wouldn’t it be terrible for something to happen to your family,” he said, adding that a comparison was made to an incident that occurred to another minor.

He said there appeared to be two messages initially, but when gardai “dug down into the metadata” they found there were six messages in total over the course of one evening.

There was no objection to bail.

Ms Barry was told the bail conditions were to have no contact with Mr Harris, either directly or indirectly or on social media, and to sign in once a week at a Ronanstown Garda Station between 9am and 9pm.

Judge Michele Finan told Ms Barry if these conditions were breached, her bail could be revoked.

The court heard she was on minimum wage working as an equine hand.

She will next appear before the Dublin District Court at 10.30am on Thursday December 18.