Two brothers have been jailed for a total of 6½ years for harassing a family because of a debt they claimed the victims’ son owed.
Karl (27) and Cian (30) Hughes, of Castleknock Meadows, Laurel Lodge, Dublin 15, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to harassment of the Kennedy family at their home in Rathfarnham on dates between April and September 2019.
Cian has six previous convictions including one for drug dealing while Karl had none.
Garda Peter Finnan told Kieran Kelly BL, prosecuting, that the Kennedy family had previously paid €15,000 to a man after their son Cormac told them in May 2018 that his life was in danger if he did not pay a debt he owed.
He said he had been “let down by a business partner”, who owed 50 per cent of the debt but had left the country. The family took out loans to raise the money because they were concerned for the safety of the people in the house including a grandmother.
The family assumed that was the end of it but Karl Hughes called to their home in April 2019, a month after the grandmother died. The initial visits were without incident.
Garda Finnan said two weeks after the grandmother’s funeral Karl Hughes called to the house and asked for Cormac. Ms Kennedy later told gardaí she could hear the conversation between her son and Karl Hughes getting heated and she realised Cormac “could be up to his old tricks”.
Has not returned
After that meeting, Cormac took a backpack and his passport and left the house. He has not returned to live in the family home since.
Garda Finnan said days later Karl Hughes returned to the house and that was when the harassment began. He said Cormac owed him €8,500 and threatened that he would call again with re-enforcements.
The court heard that Karl Hughes called to the Kennedy’s home on five occasions and his brother Cian was with him on three of those.
CCTV footage from the Kennedy’s home was played to the court where Karl Hughes could be seen banging loudly on the door and demanding the money owed.
Deirdre Kennedy read her victim impact statement into the record, saying the family were in the process of grieving when the threatening behaviour began.
“From April to September the house was under attack and turned into a horrific battleground,” Ms Kennedy said.
Ms Kennedy said that the harassment her family experienced was something “more usually viewed on television than experienced in reality” and said none of her friends, family and neighbours have experienced such crime.
‘Overwhelming stress’
She said she and her husband experienced medical problems and had to take extended sick leave from work. In both cases the medical professionals concluded that their difficulties were due “to the overwhelming stress levels of living under siege conditions,” she said.
Kate Hughes, sister of Karl and Cian Hughes, told Keith Spencer BL, defending Cian Hughes, that she has been working with her brothers to help them deal with mental health issues they are both experiencing. She works as an educational psychologist and outlined the difficulties her brothers experience.
The court heard that the brothers came from a respectable family and had been well-educated at Belvedere College.
Judge Martin Nolan jailed Karl Hughes for four years and Cian Hughes for 2½ years, after accepting evidence that Karl was the ring leader and that Cian followed. He said the brothers “engaged in a pattern of harassment the object of which was to terrify the Kennedy family to pay back the debt and they succeeded and terrified them completely as evidenced by the victim impact statement”.