A woman who made up to 9,000 silent calls to a Garda station was sentenced to six months in jail by Judge Tim Lucey at Birr District Court yesterday.
Sgt Dermot Drey of Birr Garda station succeeded in his application to commit Bridget Sullivan (47) of Lisgreen, Rathcabbin, Co Tipperary, to prison arising from the decision of a previous court to impose a six-month suspended sentence on her for harassment-related charges.
Sgt Drey wanted to activate the suspended sentence imposed at a sitting of Birr District Court on November 8th, 2002.
That sentence had been suspended on condition that the defendant be of good behaviour for three years; have no contact with the Kennedy family of Graigue, Rathcabbin; and that she stop making harassing phone calls to Birr and Lorrha Garda stations.
Sgt Drey said the defendant had been handed down a three-year suspended jail term in a separate trial for similar charges in the Circuit Court in Clonmel in December last year.
As the offences in that case had occurred on dates within a three-year period of District Court hearing, the defendant was in breach of the conditions laid down by the latter court.
The court was told that Ms Sullivan, who had been served with a notice on February 15th to appear at yesterday's court, was not present and was not legally represented.
The judge marked the case proved and activated the six-month suspended sentence imposed in November 2002.
The jury in a three-day trial at the Circuit Court last December found Ms Sullivan, a mother of six and grandmother of two, guilty on a total of four sample charges of making annoying and harassing telephone calls to Birr Garda station and to Kevin Kennedy, the 13-year-old son of her local postman, with whom she claimed she had had an affair.
The court was told at the time that Birr Garda station was receiving up to 200 silent calls a day from Ms O'Sullivan on her mobile phone, causing stress and illness among members of the force and making it impossible to operate the station effectively.
During his evidence yesterday, Sgt Drey claimed that harassing phone calls were still being made up to the present, but the judge interjected, saying that no such allegation had been proven.