Alan Ellis adjourned on prison officer threat charge

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Alan Ellis’s case for threatening to kill a prison officer was adjourned at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, reported on 14 December 2018. The alleged attack happened at Mountjoy Prison on 28 June 2016, when Ellis was accused of swinging a blade moulded into a toothbrush at an officer delivering toilet paper. Ellis pleaded guilty to threatening to kill a prison officer and producing a blade during a dispute. Judge Patricia Ryan adjourned the matter to 20 December for finalisation.

The court heard that Ellis had been diagnosed with Tourette syndrome and paranoid schizophrenia. A psychiatric report said his prison regime was not conducive to therapeutic benefit, while his defence counsel told the court he had been in solitary confinement for much of the previous four years.

This report covers an earlier stage of the case. Later developments are not reported here.