by Andrew Carey
A Limerick woman who threatened to blow a Garda’s head off with a imitation gun is now “in the last chance saloon”, a judge has warned.
Judge Carroll Moran told 22-year-old Belinda O’Sullivan at Limerick Circuit Court that she had come to the end of the line and she was now in the last chance saloon in relation to her behaviour and pattern of regular offending.
Ms O’Sullivan, with an address at the Travelodge Hotel, Coonagh, threatened to blow the head off a Garda with an imitation pistol after he seized a vehicle at the hotel on the Ennis Road.
Garda Gavin Fisher told the court that he was impounding the vehicle when he was approached from behind by the defendant wielding the imitation weapon.
Sticking the gun into the Garda’s back, O’Sullivan shouted “give me back my car or I’ll blow your f***ing head off.”
A second Garda, who was with Garda Sisher, immediately disarmed the young woman and seized the weapon. Further examination revealed that it was a cigarette lighter made to look like a vintage pistol.
The court heard of Ms O’Sullivan’s lengthy list of previous convictions that stemmed from a troubled background and upbringing.
Defence Counsel Mark Nicholas said “it was a joke, and a pretty bad one at that”, but his client never intended to harm anyone.
Garda Fisher didn’t take the same view and retorted that “it certainly wasn’t a joke” adding that “it was a very serious matter”.
He told Judge Moran that the whole experience had been “very frightening and upsetting” for him.
Although described as a drug addict with a number of issues, Judge Moran was told that Ms O’Sullivan was clean from drugs since she had been in custody.
Imposing a total of three years in sentences, Judge Carroll Moran said that he would suspend the jail term on the warning that she had was now in “the last chance saloon.”
