A man was today jailed for eight years at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for his participation in a two-day siege at Mountjoy jail almost ten years ago.
Joseph Cooper (33) of Mountain View Park, Rathfarnham, pleaded guilty to false imprisonment of five prison officers between January 4th and January 6th, 1997.
He was the last of the six inmates to come before the courts for the offence.
Stephen Galvin, Paul Ward, Eammon Seery, Warren Dumbrell and Edward Ferncombe were jailed for six, ten, two, ten and six years, respectively, at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in 1999 and 2000.
Three of the prison officers affected that day have since left the prison service; the remaining two still work in the prisons but no longer have contact with the inmates.
Cooper was then serving five years at the high security unit in Mountjoy for false imprisonment.
The prison officers were held in the recreational hall for 53 hours and threatened with various makeshift weapons, including syringes that they were told held blood containing the HIV virus.
Judge Katherine Delahunt said the prison officers were men going about their lawful duties on behalf of the State who were put in "significant fear, intimidation and trauma" and subjected to "a hell-like experience".
She accepted that the men were initially planning to stage a roof protest but could not understand why they were armed with weapons if this protest was first planned as a peaceful one as suggested.
Judge Delahunt said she was satisfied that the regret expressed by Cooper was genuine and that he was now a family man.
Mr Erwan Mill-Arden SC, defending, told the court that his client has since married and fathered three children and was now a very different man who lives a virtuous life.