A former garda who harassed his former lover with nearly 3,000 nuisance phone calls in a nine-month period had his three-year sentence effectively reduced by nine months by the Court of Criminal Appeal (CCA) yesterday.
Austin Woods (42), who has resigned from the Garda, was jailed by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in July 2001. He was also banned by Judge Dominic Lynch from communicating with the woman, Ms Colette Johnson (30), for 15 years.
When sentencing Woods, Judge Lynch said he felt he had no option but to impose a custodial sentence because of the hurt and pain Woods caused to Ms Johnson over a considerable amount of time. He recommended that Woods undergo counselling while in custody.
Woods had pleaded guilty to two counts of harassing Ms Johnson by continuously communicating and pestering her by phone and persistently making use of telecommunications to cause annoyance, anxiety and inconvenience to her between June 13th, 1999 and March 6th, 2000. He was given consecutive sentences of two and one years on the charges.
He appealed to the CCA against severity of sentence. Yesterday, it decided that six months of the two-year sentence should be suspended and that three months of the one-year sentence should be suspended, effectively suspending nine months of the total sentence. Woods is to enter into a bond to be of good behaviour in relation to the suspended part of the sentence.
Mr Justice McCracken, presiding, and sitting with Mr Justice Abbott and Mr Justice Peart, said Woods had pleaded guilty at an early stage to quite appalling behaviour in relation to the unfortunate lady.
The court believed there was little point in Woods remaining in prison for too long but he still had to remain long enough to realise the folly of what he had done.
Woods, with addresses in Cabra, Dublin, and Shanmullagh, Hackballscross, Co Louth, met Ms Johnson in 1997 when she was the owner of a bar and bed and breakfast in Granard, Co Longford.
Supt Thomas Murphy had given evidence in the Circuit Court that when the relationship ended, Woods became annoyed and started to make nuisance calls, sometimes 200 a day, to Ms Johnson. She sold her bar in Granard and moved to Co Cavan where she opened another bed and breakfast. Woods had obtained her new phone numbers and began phoning again.