Gardaí monitoring convict over threats to ‘behead’ Varadkar

ELITE gardaí are monitoring a man convicted of harassing senior politicians, over threats made regarding Leo Varadkar.

David Larkin has had two convictions in the past year for threatening and harassing Fianna Fáil junior minister Mary Butler and Fine Gael senator Michael Carrigy.

At his sentencing hearing this year for threats and harassment of Ms Butler, Larkin, through his solicitor, spoke of his deep regret for sending the abusive messages.

But weeks after he got a suspended sentence for the abuse, he has returned to social media and said he would love to ‘behead’ Mr Varadkar.

It was heard in court that Larkin is single, has no children and lives with his mother.

In a message posted on social media platform Telegram, he wrote: ‘I’d pay to watch VaradLarkin ker [sic] get his f **** t head chopped off. I’d pay even more to be the fella doing it too and I’d hold eye contact with the c*** too till it popped right out of his skull. True story.’

That message has been flagged with gardaí several times by concerned members of the public.

The Special Detective Unit (SDU), which is monitoring potentially violent members of the far right, has identified Larkin as a person of interest and someone whom they are now monitoring.

Numerous sources have told the Irish Daily Mail that Larkin is a repeat offender who has been on the gardaí’s radar since the Covid crisis.

One source said: ‘Mr Larkin has been someone gardaí have known about for quite some time. He’s also no stranger to the courts either and on both occasions he received suspended sentences.

‘To say how sorry you were in court and then weeks later to talk about beheading the leader of the country is worrying, to say the least.’

previously pleaded guilty to harassing Senator Carrigy and threatening that his ‘children will be sterilised’.

In his victim impact statement to the court in January of last year, Mr Carrigy said: ‘A direct threat was made against my children. This cannot be accepted in our society.’

Defence solicitor Frank Gearty said his client ‘repeats his apology and says it will never happen again’.

Twelve months later, Larkin was before the courts for threatening and harassing Fianna Fáil’s Ms Butler. During that sentencing hearing, the court heard that Larkin wanted to apologise for his behaviour towards the Waterford TD.

Ms Butler has been the target of serious threats and harassment for several years, much of it from far-right agitators.