Wicklow man serving eight-year prison term due for sentencing on new money demand charge
The Wicklow PeopleA Wicklow man currently serving an eight-year prison term for demanding money with menaces is due to be sentenced, after admitting a similar offence.
Zach Campbell (35), with an address at Grattan Park Lower, Greystones, Co. Wicklow, pleaded guilty at a sitting of Wicklow Circuit Criminal Court to one count of demanding money.
The accused pleaded guilty that on June 15, 2023, at Rockview Close, Newtownmountkennedy, with a view to gain for himself or another, he made an unwarranted demand with menaces that the complainant pay him a sum of cash.
Counsel for the defendant, instructed by solicitor Michael O’Connor, informed the court that he is currently serving a sentence for a similar offence.
Mr Campbell, whose criminal past dates back to the early 2010s, previously received a sentence in 2015 at Wexford Circuit Court for stealing a mini excavator and trailer from Trinity Hire.
In April 2013, he entered the business premises, produced a driving licence under the name of ‘John Lawless’, and never returned the property, but was later identified by Greystones gardaí after they viewed CCTV footage.
His then counsel, Seoirse Ó Dúnlaing, told the court that his offending was linked to his ongoing drug addiction and pressures to pay off a substantial drug debt.
Mr Campbell is serving an eight-year prison term after being found guilty at trial of demanding money from a family in 2019.
At trial, the court was told that he arrived at a property in Newcastle, Co. Wicklow, demanding €2,500 for an alleged drug debt from the property owner’s son.
One month later, the accused returned with two other men, with the father recognising Mr Campbell before retrieving a shotgun and shooting it over the heads of the men to scare them off.
It was alleged also at the trial that one of them men was carrying a bat and another an object resembling a knife.
Mr Campbell’s alibi for the incident was that he was at Rainforest Adventure Golf playing golf, but the jury of nine men and three women returned a verdict of guilty.
He received an eight-year sentence at Wicklow Circuit Court from Judge Patrick Quinn.
Mr Campbell later appealed the severity of sentence, but the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the sentence reflected the serious nature of the offending.
In upholding the sentence, the three-judge court noted several aggravating factors, including that the offences were committed at the home of an elderly couple who had no involvement in the alleged debt, that Mr Campbell had 55 previous convictions, and that he had committed a similar offence while on bail.
The court was also told of Mr Campbell’s long-standing drug addiction, positive prison reports and previous employment as a steel fabricator before a workplace injury.
Justice Tara Burns, sitting with Justice O’Moore and Justice Hyland, ruled that the sentences imposed were appropriate given the “extremely serious nature” of the offending and dismissed the appeal.
In Wicklow this month, Judge Sinéad Ní Chúlacháin adjourned the matter until June 23 for sentencing, but warned that the sentencing list was “chock-a-block” and that the possibility of the case getting in on that date was unlikely.