Heroin addict jailed for chip-shop robbery with knife

A heroin addict (27) has been jailed for five years after he admitted putting a knife to the throat of 13-year-old boy and threatening to kill him while robbing a chip shop.

Eoin O'Sullivan pleaded guilty to taking €85 from Murphs Take Away at Old Youghal Road in Cork city on October 27th 2013.

O’Sullivan from Bride Valley View, Fairhill in Cork also pleaded guilty to producing a knife capable of causing injury.

Det Sgt Kieran O'Sullivan told Cork Circuit Criminal Court that O'Sullivan entered the chip shop at 10.50pm and produced a Stanley blade and demanded money from a staff member.

He then grabbed the boy who was in the chip shop, put the blade to his neck and threatened to slit his throat if the staff member didn’t hand over the contents of the till.

The staff member gave him €85 and O’Sullivan released the boy and fled the building, driving off in a car that had been parked nearby, the court heard.

Det Sgt O’Sullivan said that O’Sullivan was identified from CCTV footage and arrested. He confirmed that he was the man on the footage and he admitted the offence.

O’Sullivan who, the court heard, had a long-standing heroin addiction, was high at the time but never intended hurting anyone, his barrister Paula McCarthy told the court.

O'Sullivan – who has 177 previous convictions – had been sentenced to six years with 18 months suspended earlier this week by Judge Seán O Donnabhain for two other robberies.

But Judge O Donnabhain said the level of violence used in the chip-shop robbery was of a different level to that of the other robberies.

It was also a premeditated robbery as he had a getaway car ready, said the judge as he sentenced O’Sullivan to five years in jail.