A MAN was given a suspended jail sentence yesterday after threatening nurses, doctors and patients at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick.
Dean Barry – who has 44 previous convictions, including for his role in a gang rape in woods in Co Clare in 2004 at age 16 – had to be restrained at the accident and emergency ward on August 11th.
Yesterday at Limerick District Court he was given a two-month jail term, suspended for four years provided he be of good behaviour. He pleaded guilty to being intoxicated and having engaged in threatening and abusive language and behaviour.
Gardaí said Barry (24), with an address at Garryglass Avenue, Ballinacurra Weston, Limerick city, had to be restrained by security staff after he became violent.
Insp Gerry Moran, Henry Street Garda station, said Barry “terrorised staff and was being very violent in AE. He lashed out at staff and was kicking tables. He was very abusive towards staff, and a lot of people who were present, including a lot of children, became very frightened”.
When gardaí inquired what had happened, Barry, whose “eyes were glazed and whose words were slurred”, told one of the arresting gardaí: “F***k you”.
Barry’s solicitor Ted McCarthy said his client admitted drinking on the day, and that he was being “treated with anti-psychotic medication”. Judge Eamon O’Brien imposed a two-month suspended jail sentence.
Barry was one of four teenage boys and a 25-year-old man who were convicted of a gang rape and serious assault of a woman in 2004. In July 2004, Barry was jailed for nine years, with the final year suspended, and given temporary release in February last year.
In November last year he was jailed for four months for public order offences and for failing to inform gardaí of his whereabouts after being placed on the sexual offenders register following his conviction for the gang rape.