Jail for man who threatened to kill neighbour

A 46-year-old man terrorised a former friend and neighbour, threatening to kill her and her family by burning their house down.

Darren McKeown, with addresses at 37 Bóthar Waithman, Ballybane, and formerly Leas an Coille and Fana Glas, appeared in custody before Galway District Court where he pleaded guilty to trespassing at his neighbour’s home in Bóthar Waithman twice on November 21 last year.

He also pleaded guilty to having a shovel intended to incapacitate or intimidate a person or cause them harm at Bóthar Waithman on January 11.

McKeown further pleaded guilty to being intoxicated and to breaching the peace by engaging in threatening, abusive and insulting words or behaviour at Bóthar Waithman and at Fana Glas on dates between July 6 last year and January 11 last.

Garda Sean McHugh was called to Bóthar Waithman on November 21 last  where he heard McKeown make a series of threats to a neighbour.

McKeown had tried to force his way into the woman’s home. He threatened to kill her and her family by burning her house down.

Gardaí were again called to the neighbourhood on January 11 last where they found McKeown shouting abuse at neighbours on the road while waving the shovel over his head.  A neighbour captured the incident on CCTV from his home and showed it to Gardaí.  McKeown had been held on remand in prison since that evening.

Sergeant Finbarr Philpott, prosecuting, said the woman who had received the threats in November was friendly with McKeown’s former partner and McKeown had gone to her house with the shovel.

He said the accused had 19 previous convictions for public order and motoring offences along with breach of a barring order.

Defence solicitor, Olivia Traynor, said her client told her the last few weeks had been the longest in his life because of the enforced sobriety he had endured, since going into custody on January 11.

She said her client and former partner broke up last October and things had escalated from there.

Ms Traynor said there were plans to rehouse her client and while in custody he had made contact with the probation service, hoping to get into residential treatment on his release for his alcohol addiction.

Reading a victim impact statement which was handed into court, Judge Fahy observed the woman who had been subjected to McKeown’s intimidation and threats had young children and she and her family had been badly affected.

McKeown gave evidence he had gone back on the drink and he picked up the spade and went down the road after someone had kicked in his front door and broken into his house.

He said the woman he had threatened had once been a good friend, but he claimed she had gone to the Council and petitioned to get him out of his house.

He conceded she had been caught in the middle of an argument between him and his former partner.

“I’m a man and a chronic alcoholic.  I went into Castlerea and this is the first time in 30 years that I have been sober.  The only reason I was arrested (on January 11) was because the Garda feared for my safety.  When I take medication and drink, I don’t know what I do sometimes.

“I’m suffering from dry drink syndrome in the jail,” he told Judge Fahy.

McKeown said he was sorry for the threats he made and said the Council told him they would rehouse him after this.

Judge Fahy became incensed.  She told McKeown there were at least 200 people waiting for homes in the city at present and that when he got a house, he just couldn’t behave himself.

She sentenced him to nine months for arming himself with the shovel and she imposed a consecutive three-month sentence for the first trespass charge followed by another one-month’s consecutive sentence for the second trespass.

She imposed another consecutive one-month sentence for one incident of breaching the peace and imposed concurrent one-month sentences on the remaining charges. She suspended four months of the 14-month sentence on condition McKeown reside somewhere other than his current address, have no contact with the woman or her family and link in with the probation service within 24 hours of his release from prison.

As he was being led away McKeown shouted he had been waiting nine years for a house and now he and his daughter would be back on the streets again.

Realising the length of the sentences imposed, McKeown shouted to Judge Fahy that she had gone too far, adding: “What a load of bollox.”