A JUDGE in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court has sentenced a man to seven years in jail for transporting a pipe bomb but he has suspended the sentence for four years after hearing evidence about tragedies in his family.
Glen Douch (22), Oakwood Green, Termonabbey, Drogheda, Co Louth, told gardaí that third parties had threatened to shoot his family if he did not transport the pipebomb, which was seized in the front passenger seat of a blue Mazda car in a north Dublin housing estate.
He is a brother of Gary Douch who was murdered by another prisoner in a holding cell at Mountjoy Prison in 2006.
The father of one pleaded guilty to possessing the improvised explosive device, which was attached to a timer and contained potassium nitrate and sulphur, at Marigold Court, Darndale, in October 2008.
He also pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and endangerment in Smithfield on December 5th, 2009. He has 27 previous convictions, for mostly minor offences.
Det Garda Paul Kennedy told Remy Farrell, prosecuting, that he and colleagues received confidential information about the blue Mazda and followed it to the housing estate.
Gardaí arrested Douch near the scene and called in the Army bomb disposal unit to make the explosives safe. Det Garda Kennedy said Douch immediately admitted possessing the explosives.
The detective agreed with Anthony Sammon SC, defending, that his client mentioned a €5,000 drug debt and said his family had received threats, which he took seriously.
Det Garda Kennedy agreed that Douch was co-operative, had entered an early guilty plea and had said he knew the bomb was not wired to go off.
The detective accepted Douch had no role in making the device.
The court heard that while he was on bail for the explosives offence, Douch was visiting his solicitor in Smithfield when he was threatened by other men, one of whom he claimed had a gun.
He sped off in his car, driving the wrong way up a street and nearly hitting a garda. He also nearly struck several pedestrians.
Mr Sammon submitted to Judge Anthony Hunt that his client had a tragic family history with one brother being murdered and another dying from a drugs overdose.
Judge Hunt noted that Douch was not “beyond rehabilitation” and agreed that he had a tragic background.