Sonya McLean
A man who was involved in threatening a teenager and his mother over a drug debt has been jailed for five years at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Aaron Colton (24) of Mount Olive Grove, Kilbarrack, Dublin , was one of several men who terrorised the 16-year-old and his mother after the boy informed the woman that he had bought cocaine from Alan Long (28), a co-accused of Colton.
The teenager said he had run up a drug debt and was being put under pressure to repay it back.
Judge Martin Nolan jailed Long of Briarfield, Kilbarrack, Dublin, for five years in May 2018 after he pleaded guilty to to one count of trespass and theft, one count of assault and one count of demanding money with menaces at his victim’s Kilbarrack home.
On Wednesday, the judge jailed Colton after he pleaded guilty to demanding money with menace for an alleged drug debt at the teenager’s home on November 23rd, 2017.
Colton has 40 previous convictions for road traffic, drug offences and public order. A warrant was issued for his arrest when he failed to appear for a hearing in relation to the case. This was executed 10 months later in January this year and Colton has been on remand in custody since.
Det Anthony O’Shea told Pieter Le Vert, prosecuting, that on November 23rd, Colton called to the boy’s family home and asked for the teenager. When he appeared Colton said: “I want my money tomorrow or I’ll break you”, before he threatened to kill him.
Colton was arrested on December 6th, 2017, at his home and following caution he told the gardaí that someone else had asked him to “knock in” on the teenager’s home.
Det O’Shea said Colton then turned to his brother and told him to make sure the teenager “doesn’t live here anymore”.
Gardaí got reassurances from Colton’s brother that he would not carry out the threat.
A victim impact report from the teenager’s mother said she was left in fear from Colton’s behaviour.
The court heard at Long’s sentence hearing last year that the boy’s mother found out her son had a drug debt of a few hundred euro in 2016. Shortly afterward, Long came to the house and told her it was now €8,000.
Long and another man, who is not before the court, then took a number of items from the boy’s house, including a flat screen TV, a suitcase of clothes, and a Nintendo gaming system.
The next day, Long returned when the mother was out and assaulted the boy in his kitchen while demanding more money.
Long returned to his victim’s home a third time at night when the mother was home. She came out to the front garden to speak to him and another man, who told her they wanted €4,000 from her in the next week.
The boy’s mother was “very afraid”, the court heard. She told them she didn’t have the money, before two other men appeared and told her if she did not pay up, “she might as well go and buy a headstone”.
The family had been too afraid to go to gardaí until then, but this incident prompted them to make a formal statement.
John Moher, defending Colton, asked the judge to accept that his client ultimately took responsibilities for his actions when he pleaded guilty.
He submitted that Colton was still a young man and that this behaviour “is quite a radical departure” from his previous criminal offending.
The judge said that “some parties wanted to threaten and extract the money from the teenager and that there was a pattern of abuse on the family, culminating in an attack on the house, burglary and an assault”.
He said Colton’s behaviour fitted into this pattern before he added that it was a convincing threat which the teenager and his mother believed would be carried out.
The judge accepted that Colton is young and that his previous convictions are for more minor offences.