Cork man who blackmailed 60-year-old who used gay dating site is jailed for 18 months
A Cork man who demanded thousands of euro with menaces arising out of an investigation into alleged blackmailing of men using a gay dating website was jailed for 18 months today.
Neil Duggan of Riverside Rise, Rushbrooke, Cobh, was sentenced to three years with half of it suspended at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.
Duggan said today: “I am not forgetting the people I hurt when I was active gambling – the shame, the hurt I caused. It is totally out of character. At the time I thought I was doing nothing wrong. I was taken in by gambling.”
Brendan Kelly, defence barrister, said Duggan had come up with €3,800 in total for the injured party. He also said the defendant had actively addressed his gambling problem which had caused him to hit rock bottom.
“To come in with the €800 today, when I was active gambling I could not keep €8 in my pocket,” the defendant said.
Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin said it would have been a benefit to the victim for the accused to plead guilty and avoid the publicity associated with giving evidence. However, the judge also referred to the false gay profile put up by the accused to lure the injured party.
Once the injured party turned up for an encounter, privately arranged through the website, he was threatened that he would be identified in relation to his part in this arrangement.
Detective Garda Gary Duggan said the injured party went on the fabguys website looking for a male companion and he linked up with someone whom he believed to be over 18 and arranged by text message to meet on April 11, 2017.
However, when the man arrived, he was confronted by the defendant who accused him of sending messages to a 15-year-old and he demanded that he drive him to Cobh Garda Station where he was going to report the matter to gardaí.
En route to Cobh Garda Station, Duggan told him that he would not proceed with his complaint if the man drove to his own house where the man handed over €2,500 to the accused and he demanded a further €5,000 which the victim handed over two days later at the Topaz filling station in Douglas.
The judge said: “The level of planning and determination in putting up this profile and following this man is very determined. It is certainly a seriously aggravating factor. A number of threats were made over a number of days.
"The behaviour was getting more and more out of control, bordering on violence. The victim, in despair, went to the guards.
You can imagine the despair at that stage. It was a limited period but the threats were quite outrageous. Having gotten money he came back for more.
Neil Duggan was sentenced for demanding €2,500 with menaces from the 60-year-old complainant at Spur Hill in Cork on April 11, 2017.
Duggan, 46, was also sentenced for a second count of demanding a further €5,000 with menaces from the same victim at the Topaz Filling Station in Douglas two days later.
The final charge was of threatening to kill the same man and making threats at the car park of the Silver Key pub in Ballinlough on April 17, 2017, to damage his house and van in the car park.
