Long spells in jail for trio in barbaric rural family raids
TWO ‘barbaric’ burglaries in rural Ireland saw three vicious thugs jailed for lengthy terms yesterday for attacks on the elderly and a young family.
In one of the brutal raids Dubliner Patrick Roche went with his 24-year-old son Philip and they terrorised an elderly man and his two sisters, all in their seventies, at their quiet home in the Co. Limerick countryside.
They tied up Willie, Nora and Chrissie Creed, assaulted them and left them covered in blood as they fled with €5,000 they had found in a sock. Willie Creed was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver during their horrific ordeal.
Passing sentence yesterday Judge John Hannan described the burglary as ‘a heinous, barbaric, and very violent attack on very vulnerable people’. He said the attack, at the house in Pallasgreen, Co. Limerick, ‘was a sickening episode’ that pointed to ‘a complete lack of empathy for older people’.
In the second raid, also at Pallasgreen, Patrick Roche’s son-in-law, Alan Freeman, 37, of Pearse Park, Tipperary town, also went along on a terrifying raid on a family’s farmhouse. They tied up Gerry and Anne Garvey, and their four children, threatened them,
‘A heinous and violent crime’
assaulted Mr Garvey and said they would blow his head off.
The couple’s daughter, who was just 14 at the time, said: ‘I still have a fear of going outside, around the grounds of the house at night because I think somebody is watching me.’
In jailing Roche Sr for 14 years, his son Philip for 12 years and Freeman for 11 years, Judge Hannan said they had acted ‘menacingly’ and with ‘brutality’ having planned the burglaries, worn dark clothing and balaclavas and armed themselves.
He said these type of aggravated burglaries cause ‘great harm’ to victims and ‘tears up the fabric of rural community life and causes suspicion and fear which spreads like a virus’. They had ‘shattered the tranquillity’ of both families.
‘To say it was terrifying, would be one of the greatest understatements of all time.’ There was also ‘a lack of mitigating factors’. They ‘are few and far between’.
He sentenced the three thugs to 17 years, 15 years and 14 years respectively, but the final three years of each was suspended.
Patrick Roche, of Kilcronan Close, Clondalkin, Dublin, had 139 previous convictions and is serving lengthy jail sentences, his son, of the same address, had 37 and Freeman had 22, including aggravated burglary. Up to 50 guns we’re stolen during the aggravated burglary. Speaking outside the court later, some of the victims hailed the judge and the sentences he imposed.
Tommy Creed, who found his siblings covered in blood following the burglary, said he felt justice had been served. He added: ‘I was amazed with the sentences they got, (it’s) a pity there wouldn’t be more judges like him. The country would be a safer place.’
Gerry Garvey said gardaí had ‘proved their worth’ in bringing the gang to justice. He added: ‘I think the sentences are a very good deterrent. I think it sends a very strong message out there that crime is not acceptable and that rural communities can be protected... and that rural communities are valued. If the gardaí are given resources, they can do a very good job.’
However Tommy Creed added that the effects of the trauma from the night of the burglary would never leave his brother and sisters. ‘You don’t ever forget it. It has a big effect... If judges could come and see what I saw (in the house) the night I went up there – and see it in person – they’d have a different attitude. I wouldn’t like to see it again. (There was) blood everywhere and everything was tossed around the place.’
His family had been left ‘devastated’ by the ordeal. But he agreed they would all sleep more soundly in their beds following yesterday’s sentences.