A father who threatened the boyfriend of his former partner with a knife, after he was unable to go to his daughter's Communion, has been jailed for six years by Judge Katherine Delahunt at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Paul Moy (36), a father of two, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary at Sheelin Avenue, Ballybrack, on May 5th, 2005. He also pleaded guilty to attempted robbery at a Spar Shop at Tunsgate in Tallaght on September 9th, 2005, while on bail for the burglary.
Judge Delahunt sentenced Moy to three years for the aggravated burglary and a consecutive three-year term for the attempted robbery.
The judge said that while Moy had come into the house unarmed, he became "enraged" on seeing his former partner with her boyfriend, grabbed a kitchen knife and "wreaked havoc" in a house where six children were sleeping.
The judge said she accepted Moy had previously "defeated a drug and drink habit" and due to the assistance of his former partner and her two teenage sons, he had not inflicted any injuries on her boyfriend.
Garda Darren Colfer told Sinéad McGrath, prosecuting, that Moy had got into the house through a previously broken bathroom window.
His former partner, with whom he has two children, woke up to find him standing in her bedroom with a knife which he then held to her throat.
When he saw her boyfriend beside her, he started shouting at him, "you have taken everything" and "I am going to slit your throat", but he could not reach over to the man because of a cot beside the bed.