Courts / Wicklow / Report

Boyfriend became paranoid and obsessive after car crash, court hears

Date
2022-04-27

Stage
Sentence

Primary locality
Tinahely

County
Wicklow

Summary

In a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court hearing, 23‑year‑old Denis Condron pleaded guilty to harassing his former girlfriend, Elva Duffy, between December 2019 and March 2020. Condron, who had been dating Duffy for several months, claimed that a car crash had altered his personality, making him paranoid, obsessive and possessive. He allegedly called her up to 15 times a day, demanded photographs to prove her identity, video‑called her while she slept, and threatened to kill himself and to send intimate photographs to her parents. After the relationship ended, he continued to contact her, sometimes following her to public places and her college. Judge Martin Nolan found the cumulative behaviour amounted to harassment, imposed a two‑year sentence suspended in full for two years, and ordered Condron no contact with Duffy for 30 years. No custodial sentence was imposed. The court noted that the harassment lasted three months and that both parties had since gone their separate ways.

Who, what, where, when and why

What: Report matter: Boyfriend became paranoid and obsessive after car crash, court hears. Charges or matters: harassing the woman between December 2019 and March 2020. Procedural stage: sentence

When:

December 2019 Hearing Or Sentence
March 2020 Hearing Or Sentence
February 2020 Other
2022-04-27 Publication

Why: Gda Melvin told Ms Duffy that on some occasions when the woman met Condron in public she would end up running away and hiding because she was afraid of him. CNI source report

Case subjects

Denis Condron

Defendant

Charges: harassing the woman between December 2019 and March 2020 (Admitted)

Plea: Guilty

Outcome: He said that given the harassment lasted for three months it was "at the less serious end of the spectrum" of such an offence and Condron does not deserve a custodial sentence. Judge Nolan imposed a sentence of two years which he suspended in full for two years.