A 51-year-old man has been sentenced to three years in jail after he failed to be of good behaviour in keeping with the terms of his prison release after he threatened to kill a garda and went on the rampage in a stolen airport police vehicle at Cork Airport.
Edmond Stapleton, a native of Kilbarry Cottages, Dublin Hill, Cork, but now with an address at Garranlease, Kilfinane, Co Limerick, was back at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on foot of an incident where he bit one garda and kicked another.
Stapleton had been sentenced in 2012 to 12 years in jail with five years suspended when he was convicted of 12 offences, including threatening to kill Garda Michael Bohane and careering around Cork Airport in a stolen airport police vehicle.
Judge Sean Ó Donnabháin made it a condition of suspending the final five years of Stapleton’s sentence that he would remain under the direction of the Probation Service, remain alcohol- and drug-free and be of good behaviour for a period of five years.
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But this week, the DPP applied under Section 99 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 to have the matter re-entered after it emerged that Stapleton had attacked two gardaí in Limerick, in breach of his undertaking to be of good behaviour after the airport rampage.
Det Sgt Chris Cahill told how Armed Support Unit members from Cork went to Stapleton’s home in Kilfinane on June 16th, 2023, to carry out a search of the house as part of an investigation into a shooting in the Wilton area of Cork city on May 12th, 2023.
Gardaí knocked on the door of Stapleton’s house and identified themselves but got no reply, so they made their way into the property and found Stapleton upstairs, intent on causing himself self-harm by trying to jump out a window.
Gardaí went to restrain him, but he kicked out and one officer was knocked back, suffering an injury to his elbow, while Stapleton bit another officer on the arm as he and his colleagues tried to bring Stapleton downstairs.
The incident led to Stapleton being charged with two counts of assault causing harm and on November 6th last, at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court, he was sentenced to three years in jail for the biting incident, and 12 months in jail, concurrently, for the other assault.
Cork City State Solicitor Frank Nyhan said at Cork Circuit Criminal Court today that the State was seeking to have the matter re-entered on foot of Stapleton’s recent convictions and he asked Det Sgt Cahill to outline the detail of the original offence in 2011.
Det Sgt Cahill told how, on the afternoon of May 22nd, 2011, Stapleton had jumped into a Garda SUV on Patrick Street in Cork city centre and put a knife to the throat of Garda Michael Bohane, threatening to kill him, before ordering him from the vehicle.
He then drove at speed on to the South Link Road and to Cork Airport, where he crashed through perimeter fencing and hijacked a Cork Airport Fire Service 4x4 and began careering around the apron, where he rammed an unmarked Garda car.
He missed one aircraft loaded with fuel and full of holidaymakers by inches when he pulled up short near it. Then, wearing only boxer shorts, he jumped from the 4x4 armed with two knives and eventually had to be tasered to enable gardaí to arrest him.
Pleading for leniency, defence barrister Elaine Audley BL said her client had expressed remorse for his actions and Det Sgt Cahill agreed with her that Stapleton was living in extremely poor conditions at his house in Kilfinane and had poor mental health.
Judge Dermot Sheehan said the assault of the two gardaí was in clear breach of the terms of his suspended sentence from Cork Circuit Criminal Court, and said he would reactivate the full five years that were suspended by Judge Ó Donnabháin in 2012.
He said he would make this consecutive to the three-year term for the assaults of the gardaí imposed in Limerick on November 6th, but suspended the final two years of the five-year term, meaning that Stapleton will now serve a total of six years in jail.
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