Five-year sentence for man who threatened to kill garda
A Dublin criminal who was jailed recently for a conspiracy to steal €855,000 from a cash-in-transit van has received another five-year sentence with one suspended for threatening to kill a garda.
Jeffrey Morrow (aged 27) claimed he had followed Garda Emmet Byrne home one evening in a stolen car while on drugs and had intended to ram the garda’s vehicle, burning him inside.
He told Garda Peter Murtagh he changed his mind, but planned to “do something” in future now he knew where Gda Byrne lived.
Garda Michael O’Rourke told Mr Paul Carroll BL, prosecuting in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, that Morrow had been “unlawfully at large” and made the threat shortly after being caught behind a water tank at a Mont Pellier Park premises and taken back to Mountjoy Prison.
Gda O’Rourke explained that there had been a history of animosity between his colleague and Morrow in connection with 2004 road traffic offences.
Morrow, of Hazelcroft Road, Finglas, pleaded guilty to making a threat to Gda Murtagh that he would kill or seriously harm Gda Byrne at Mountjoy Prison on December 12, 2006. He has 82 previous convictions, including theft, firearms and drugs offences.
Judge Patricia Ryan jailed Morrow for six years last October for his role in a conspiracy to steal from a cash van at a Shackleton Road Tesco in Celbridge on November 2, 2007.
She noted that Morrow had been on bail for the conspiracy charge when he committed this offence but ordered that this sentence be served concurrently.
She took into consideration Morrow’s expression of apology and backdated his sentence to when he pleaded guilty to the offence on November 11, 2009.
Mr Luigi Rea BL, defending, submitted to Judge Ryan that his client had been in jail since November 2007 and was due for release in October 2012.
He submitted his client had never intended to follow through with his threat.
Mr Rea said Morrow wished to apologise to Gda Byrne, who was diagnosed with mild traumatic stress disorder after the incident, and added that there were no further cases pending against his client.
