A Father who did not approve of his daughter going out with a refugee from the Mosney Refugee Centre and went to Mosney looking for him while carrying a shotgun was fined €2,500 at Trim Circuit Court yesterday.
Mr Herbert Behan (56), from Julianstown, Co Meath, admitted making a threat that he would kill a third person to one of the security guards at the refugee centre on June 14th last year.
Garda Cora Whelan said Mr Behan had driven to the entrance gates of Mosney and got out of his car carrying a shotgun, which he proceeded to load with two cartridges.
It became clear to the two security guards that he was looking for a particular man and as he was getting no assistance from them he said he would to down to the centre and "kill the first black man" he saw.
However, he left the gates and was arrested a short time later.
He made a full statement to garda Whelan and showed her where he had hidden the shotgun. In his statement Mr Behan said that local priest Father Daly had asked the community to make the refugees feel welcome and as a result the family had invited one of them to tea on a number of occasions.
However his daughter, who was 34, had begun a relationship with this man.
Mr Behan told gardaí he thought the relationship had ceased but when he went to his local pub in Julianstown on the night in question, he was told the couple had been in earlier.
"I flipped," he told the garda and got the shotgun and car and headed to Mosney. "I wasn't intending to shoot him, just scare him," he added. Defence counsel Mr Mark de Blacam said Mr Behan was remorseful and it was the act of a distraught father, it was totally uncharacteristic.
Judge Raymond Groarke said that Mr Behan had lost the head but was excessive in taking the shotgun and going to the centre.
It was not conduct he believed Mr Behan was proud of and he \ suspected he had felt an idiot. Judge Groarke imposed a fine of €2,500 and ordered that the shotgun be confiscated.