No extra jail time for rampage

A MAN has been spared extra jail time after he pleaded guilty yesterday to criminal damage at Oberstown detention centre, which is responsible for detention and remand of young people up to 18 years of age. During the incident, youths barricaded themselves in a room at the centre, and during the stand-off, ‘anything they could destroy, was destroyed’, a court heard.

Dylan Hafford, now 19, with an address at Francis Street, Drogheda, Co. Louth, admitted causing €5,600 worth of damage to furniture, windows, a door and smoke alarms during an incident on February 2, 2016. The case was heard at the Dublin Children’s Court as he was a juvenile at the time.

Garda Fionnuala Monaghan told Judge Jones the youth and a co-accused went into a multi-purpose room in the detention centre and ‘barricaded themselves in the room’. She said they remained there for several hours and ‘they basically destroyed the whole room’.

The court heard he already had 50 prior criminal convictions and had received a five-year sentence, with the final two suspended imposed at Dundalk Circuit Court in 2017 for an aggravated burglary offence.

Damian McKeone, defending, urged the court not to add to the youth’s existing prison term which ends next year.

Judge Jones imposed an eight-month term but back-dated it to run from a date in October when Hafford was first charged with the Oberstown incident, meaning his jail time has not been extended.