McAnaw ordered to serve 10 more months after suspended sentence breach
This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.
Judge Martin Nolan reactivated 10 months of a suspended sentence for Mark McAnaw and ordered him to serve it consecutively to his 11-year sentence for harassing three journalists. The hearing took place at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 11 July 2025.
McAnaw pleaded guilty to harassing Sunday World journalists Nicola Tallant, Amanda Brunker and Deirdre Reynolds on various dates in August 2023. The proceedings were reported on 5 June 2025.
Judge Pauline Codd imposed an 11-year sentence, backdated to August 2023. She had outlined a sentence with the final 12 months suspended for five years, but McAnaw refused to enter the bond because he considered its conditions onerous. The judge imposed the full sentence.
The proposed conditions included five years of probation supervision, compliance with his medical regime, abstaining from illicit substances and making internet-enabled devices available when requested by gardaí. Judge Codd also ordered McAnaw not to contact or approach the women, communicate with them or go within 10 miles of their homes and workplaces for life.
The court heard that McAnaw sent the women violent and sexually threatening messages, including a threat to kill Reynolds. He also went to the Sunday World offices and, after being refused entry, went to a café across the road, where gardaí found him writing an email to Tallant.
The July hearing concerned a sentence imposed in June 2023 for aggravated burglary committed in 2018. McAnaw received eight years and four months, backdated to 2018, with the final 16 months suspended for 16 years. He was released in July 2023.
The application to reactivate that suspended portion followed his harassment convictions and a separate District Court conviction for breaching the Sex Offenders’ Act. Defence counsel Rebecca Smith said McAnaw was homeless after his release, struggled to access medication and found it difficult to abide by the conditions.