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AN ARMED ROBBER who held up a shop while two gardaí were in the back checking CCTV footage has been jailed.
Drug addict Patrick Dunne (30) brandished an imitation firearm at a shop assistant before being chased out of the shop by the gardaí.
Dunne of Santry Lodge, Ballymun, Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to robbing the Centra shop at Coultry Road in Ballymun, Dublin on 12 September 2017.
He has 93 previous convictions, including for theft, burglary and criminal damage.
Judge Martin Nolan imposed a four-and-a-half year sentence on Dunne saying he had terrified customers when he produced a “convincing imitation” firearm to rob the shop.
Detective Ronan Darcy told Cathleen Noctor BL, prosecuting, that Dunne entered the shop in a black jacket with his hood up before 8pm on the evening of the crime.
He waited in line with his hand in his jacket until he got to the till before pointing the “realistic imitation firearm” at a shop assistant, the court heard.
Dunne demanded that the cashier open the till, handing him a blue plastic bag to fill with cash. The cashier had difficulty at first opening the cash register and Dunne said:
This is your last chance or I’ll shoot you.
Pointed firearm
The shop assistant finally managed to open the till and Dunne told him he wanted “everything.” The shop assistant put €880 into the bag as the imitation firearm was pointed at him.
During the robbery the backdoor of the shop opened and gardaí arrived in, the court heard.
Detective Darcy said he and a colleague had “coincidentally” been studying footage in the rear of the shop in relation to another investigation before becoming aware that a robbery was occurring.
Darcy drew his firearm and called out, “Armed gardaí” but Dunne failed to drop his weapon and ran out of the shop.
The gardaí chased him down and arrested him. The imitation firearm measuring 7.5 inches in length was later discovered in a rear garden in Coultry Crescent in Ballymun.
Darcy agreed with Fiona Murphy BL, defending, that Dunne was a self-confessed drug addict who had used drugs since his early teens, progressing into a serious addiction.
Murphy said her client had been caught “red-handed” and carried out the robbery as he owed an €800 debt at the time.
She said he offered a full apology for what he did and had entered a guilty plea at the earliest stage.
Judge Nolan noted that Dunne robbed and stole to feed his drug problem before sentencing him to four and a half years in prison. He backdated the sentence to 12 December, 2017.
“He has 93 previous convictions, including for theft, burglary and criminal damage.”
Says it all really.
@Maggie O’Connor:
Drug addict feeding an addiction. Imagine the amount of money the legal profession has made from the public purse in free legal aid?
@Maggie O’Connor: should add a year on for every previous crime
@Maggie O’Connor: avg fee for 10/15 minutes of free legal aid lawyer 200€ , now times 93 equals 18600€ like everything now days we pay the price no matter what.
@David Sinclair: It would certainly make a good FOI request.
@Eddie O’Neill: Another question might be what is the rate of successful rehabilitation amongst addicts who engage in addictions services compared to other countries?
@David Sinclair: it would be cheaper to give him heroin on prescription
93 previous convictions, a person like this will never contribute positively to society and should therefore be removed from society
@Stephen Curry: ah everyone deserves a 95th chance
@Daniel Wilson: 99 problems but jail aint one!
@Stephen Curry: very educated comment too make ,obious you know his family friends who suffer too rid him of his addiction and love him for him not for his silly and unacceptable crimes caused by the demonic drugs ,hope he gets treatment in prison just think he was your brother ???
@John Leonard: Honest question, what in your mind is the solution to this?
I doubt he can remember the vast majority of his crimes but they are I’m sure rememered vividly in the memories of many of his victims.
I do agree with you on his family suffering so therefore would it not be beneficial for everyone that he is behind bars?
93 previous convictions? He should be in the middle of an 800 year sentence.
I wonder if the judge thought while giving him his 93rd lenient sentence, “this is the day this guy turns his life around”?
He would have got a lesser sentence if he shot and killed the store assistant.
@Xylophobiac: That would be at the lower end of the scale I would imagine.
Now however, had he robbed a basket of Garlic.
@Dave.: this garlic thing keeps getting brought up, its entered the realms of urban legend at this stage. The guy convicted in that case was robbing the state i.e. you and me of millions of euro. Granted the sentence was severe, but it was a serious crime. If a social welfare recipient defrauded the state of the sums involved, people on here would be calling for heads to roll.
@Dermot Lane: Garlic Man was made an example of. Do not defraud the state. Unless you are the government.
@Xylophobiac: with an imitation firearm, he should be given his own magic show.
@Jamie McCormack: are you garlic man should have been let away with it?
@Dermot Lane: Garlic man was paying back the money every month with €700,000 owed at time of sentencing. He offered to pay it all back. Now at this point shall we mention banks?
@Dermot Lane: Of course not, but if you have blind justice and equate his 3/4 year term with a fraud of 6 odd million, how many years will the bankers and their enablers serve? Their crimes are in the billions but they won’t be locked up. They just continue to get richer, at our expense of course.
@iohanx: I think the bigger punishment is that he’ll be known as garlic man until the end of time now
@Daniel Wilson: I knew the garlic man . . . & he hates fcukin garlic.
Judge Martin Nolan dishing out another cushy sentence.
@Uncle Montys Cat: it’s actually long by his standards
Brave Garda
@@Kevinro1980: Surprising that an armed detective was in the shop viewing cctv footage, especially for the robber.
See how in Ireland he could point a gun at guards who are armed and nobody gets shot. They chase you down and catch you.
@Carina Clarke: I didn’t read in this article that he pointed the gun at a Garda.
93 previous convictions and he was still walking the streets, begars belief…!
Ireland’s dumbest criminals
@john: this weeks one anyway
Hahaha. Classic.
Pure shcumbag. He deserved to be shot dead.
CTRL+ “convictions” “suspended” “Nolan”. when those 3 results appear, you know its bad news
*** CTRL+F
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