by Andrew Carey
andrew
A TEENAGER who helped kidnap two men for a €500,000 ransom has been sentenced to five years detention and supervision.
Jonathan Blackhall of Grattan Court, Limerick, will turn 17 at the end of this week in Oberstown Boys detention school where he begins a two and a half-year sentence.
On the night of August 19/20, Blackhall was with two armed and masked men who bundled two teenagers into a pickup truck from a house in Castletroy.
He stayed guard over the two victims in the truck as they were taken to a derelict house in Limerick.
One of the men was released and given a demand for €500,000 to be paid over for the safe release of a the other victim.
Judge Carroll Moran heard evidence that Blackhall held the victim at a field near Donoughmore in the early hours of the morning of August 20 before the abducted man escaped and raised the alarm.
Blackhall fled the scene and walked towards Limerick before being arrested by gardaí who were suspicious of a young man dressed in black walking on an unlit country road.
He subsequently pleaded guilty to two charges of false imprisonment and was of material assistance to the investigation.
After a four week trial, his fellow defendant, 34-year-old Zachary Coughlan Ryan was found guilty by a jury in a unanimous verdict before Judge Carroll Moran.
According to gardaí, the third man involved in the “tiger kidnap” has gone to ground.
Defence counsel Andrew Sexton, SC, told the court that Blackhall was just 15 at the time of the incident and was heavily influenced by the two older and “more sinister” men he was with.
The court heard of Blackhall’s “dysfunctional background” after his parents separated some years ago.
Considering the plea that the period of detention and supervision be used for rehabilitation, Judge Moran said that a term of five years would be an appropriate sentence – half of which is to be served in Oberstown Boys School and the other half to be supervised by a probation and welfare officer.
