A chronic cocaine addict who carried out almost 30 syringe robbery crimes has sent written apologies to most of his victims, including two foreign tourists who wish to meet him to wish him well in his recovery.
Thomas Thompson (35) told Judge Katherine Delahunt at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that he wanted to meet his victims face to face at some point to bring closure to the cases for them and himself.
Thompson, Tymonville Drive, Tallaght, pleaded guilty to 24 robberies and five attempted robberies between April 14th, 2005 and January 18th, 2006. His crimes included mugging 18 taxi drivers.
Judge Delahunt adjourned sentencing after being told that Thompson is to be arraigned next week on six new charges of robbery for incidents which are alleged to have occurred in December 2005.
Thompson got away with €2,569 in cash, sports tickets and two mobile phones. He threatened all of his victims with a syringe, saying he would give them Aids if they did not co-operate. He did not injure any of them but some told gardaí they noticed a dark substance in the syringe.
The crimes included an attempted robbery on two tourists, from Scotland and Canada, and the robbery of World Wrestling Federation tickets from a man whom he had arranged to meet to buy them from.
He also raided eight shops, one with a co-accused who has yet to be dealt with.
Thompson agreed with his barrister Marie Torrens, that he wrote letters of apology to most of his victims stating that he could not justify his actions or begin to imagine the hurt and distress he caused.
He said he knew his actions had also hurt his long-term partner and their two children and he wanted to sort his life out so he could be a better father.
He told Judge Delahunt that he hoped to start an addiction studies course on his release from prison so he could become a counsellor to prevent others from making the same mistakes he did.
Garda Declan Boland told Stephen McCann, prosecuting, that Thompson had worked on a counselling course in Trinity College Dublin, but said that after meeting a man on a bus who had a bag of cocaine he took some of it and "bingo - I was back to square one again".
Garda Boland said that most of the victims accepted Thompson's letters of apology and the two tourists wrote to the Garda station stating they would be interested in meeting him to wish him well in his recovery.
He had 38 previous convictions, which included a robbery for which he received a three-year jail term in 2003.