Man who threatened to kill and bite the nose off garda jailed for four years
An out-of-control Sligo man threatened to bite the nose off a garda as he threatened to kill her during an extremely violent incident in Allihies, Co Cork, during the summer.
“He was completely enraged, completely out of control. We were lucky to get out of there alive. In 23 years of service with An Garda Síochána it was the most frightening incident I have ever experienced,” Garda Caroline Guest said.
The threats Damien O’Sullivan made to kill Garda Guest and her colleague, Garda Martin Hegarty that night and the criminal damage he caused to their patrol car with the butt of a slash-hook resulted in the 26-year-old getting a sentence of four years consecutive to a sentence of 18 months he has been serving since July, with the last year suspended.
In effect, the events of that night have resulted in O’Sullivan facing a total of four and a half years in jail, commencing from July.
Dragging his mother around by the hair
Gardaí responded to a call at around midnight on May 27 to go to Eskivaude which is five miles beyond the village of Allihies.
They arrived to a remote house to find the accused assaulting his mother and dragging her around by her hair.
He immediately turned his aggression on gardaí, threatening to kill Garda Guest and bite her nose off.
He made the additional threat to Garda Hegarty that as well as biting his nose off he would ram it down his throat.
As he repeatedly struck the bonnet of the patrol car with the slash-hook he said: “I’ll show ye.”
Gardaí managed to get the defendant’s mother out of danger and brought her away from the scene in the patrol car and called for support from other units.
Two teams of the armed support unit and other gardaí from Limerick arrived at the scene but it took more than an hour for the back-up to arrive. It then took a couple of hours more to bring the accused under control and arrest him.
Blaise O’Carroll senior counsel for the defence said the defendant had come to the area with his mother for his uncle’s funeral and that his uncle had been a father figure in his life.
Mr O’Carroll said the defendant was remorseful and apologised to gardaí for his actions.
However, when Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin rose from the bench after the case, O’Sullivan turned to Garda Guest before being escorted into custody and twice called her a “fucking tramp”.
During the sentencing hearing, Mr O’Carroll said the defendant had anger management issues which he was going to address.
Judge Ó Donnabháin said it was all a case of what O’Sullivan was going to do and not what he had already done to rehabilitate.
In the meantime he was a danger to society, the judge said.
The suspension on the 18-month sentence in Mullingar Circuit Court was revoked in July and that was for a similar incident where he was involved in violent disorder.
O’Sullivan was of no fixed address in Sligo.
