A Circuit Court judge yesterday condemned alleged intimidation and attempted extortion by the IRA of a man who was sentenced yesterday for assault.
Leonard Burke (29), Oakfield, Grangebellew, Co Louth, was threatened at gunpoint and ordered to pay €90,000. He was told he would be "got" in prison and there was a threat to rape his mother.
Details of the intimidation were outlined by Burke and supported by a garda who confirmed Burke had "been forced" to withdraw statements to gardaí about the intimidation he suffered.
Burke told Judge Pat McCartan he had been told he would "be shot by that night" if he did not do so. He was before Dundalk Circuit Court yesterday to be sentenced after pleading guilty to assaulting Michael Mulligan at Park Street, Dundalk, on August 8th, 2004.
Derek Kenneally, defending, outlined a series of threats, intimidation and acts of extortion and said it was not claimed they were carried out by Mr Mulligan but by persons purporting to act for Mr Mulligan.
The court heard that as a result of the assault, the injured man had surgery to insert a plastic plate in the side of his head to support his eye socket and that he had a groin injury.
He had been assaulted following a night in a club. When gardaí arrived they found Burke lying on top of Mr Mulligan and hitting him around the head with his fist. He was arrested.
However, Judge McCartan said the injuries would require more force than that used by Burke and he was treating him as not responsible for all the injuries and as not necessarily being the instigator of what happened.
After the incident, Burke began to receive phone calls saying if he did not pay compensation, he would be shot. He met some people who claimed to be from the IRA who said he would go to jail for five years and "I'd be got in jail".
He was contacted by a man who said the people who approached him had been "unauthorised by the IRA". Burke said he remained terrified, he was afraid to live in his house and he followed security advice from gardaí.
Mr Kenneally said the issue was what position the court took in relation to "vigilantes who usurp the primacy of this court, take the law into their own hands and act as judge, jury and executioner".
Passing sentence, Judge McCartan said that after the assault, Burke was subject to "appalling treatment at the hands of greater wrongdoers, vigilantes, provisional IRA identified members". He had been subject to an appalling reign of terror and it would be "invidious" of the court to ignore that in assessing sentence.
He applied the Probation Act, found the facts proven but did not record a conviction.