A garda who harassed his former lover with nearly 3,000 phone calls over nine months has been jailed for three years by Judge Dominic Lynch at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Austin Woods (42), who has since resigned from An Garda Sioch ana, was also banned from communicating with Ms Collette Johnson (29) for 15 years.
Judge Lynch said he had to impose a custodial sentence because of the hurt and pain Woods caused Ms Johnson over a considerable period of time. Woods, a separated father of two with addresses at Nephin Road, Cabra, Dublin, and Shanmullagh, Hackballscross, Co Louth, pleaded guilty to two counts of harassing Ms Johnson between June 1999 and March 2000.
Woods met Ms Johnson in 1997 when she owned a bar and B&B in Granard, Co Longford, and he was stationed at Finglas in Dublin. Supt Thomas Murphy told Mr Colm Smyth, prosecuting, the relationship started out as a client-customer one but later developed.
When their relationship ended six months later, Woods started to make nuisance calls - sometimes 200 a day - to Ms Johnson to such an extent that she sold her bar in Granard and moved to Co Cavan. Woods got her new landline and mobile numbers and began phoning her again.
Supt Murphy said Woods allegedly sent obscene packages to Ms Johnson, one of which contained human excrement, and allegedly threatened her daughter's safety.
Supt Murphy said he took a statement from Ms Johnson in January 2000 in which she said the past few months had been "hell on earth" and she feared for her life. Gardai found documentation at Woods's home in relation to bogus newspaper advertisements he placed about the sale of Ms Johnson's pub.