By Natasha Reid
A Dublin man has been sentenced to six years in prison for threatening to kill a betting shop worker and for robbing a launderette in the city.
The judge also reinstated part of a four-year suspended sentence Jordan Cunningham (31) had received for another robbery, after breaching his probation with a similar crime.
Cunningham, of Bow Bridge Place, Irwin Street in Kilmainham, was before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for sentencing.
He had pleaded guilty to threatening to kill or cause serious injury to a female worker in Paddy Power’s on James’s Street on July 5 last.
He also pleaded guilty to the attempted robbery of Harcourt Launderette and Dry Cleaners on Charlemont Street on November 4, 2023.
Garda Colm Anderson said that it was about 5pm, when Cunningham entered the betting shop that day, and approached the only staff member working at the time; she was behind a counter with a perspex screen.
She recognised him as someone, who had been barred by her superiors, and informed him. Cunningham began shouting, kicking the counter and spat at the perspex screen in her direction.
He pulled at the credit card machine and smashed it on the ground, and reached under the perspex screen and pushed over her computer.
He also spat under the perspex but didn’t make contact with her. He said that he would slash her face after work and get her ‘whacked’.
There was another customer in the shop, who intervened and escorted Cunningham out.
The employee dialled 999 and gardaí were able to identify Cunningham from CCTV.
Judge Pauline Codd read the victim impact statement of the woman, who said that she now refuses to work in Paddy Power shops that don’t have a perspex screen.
She explained, however, that the perspex screens are being taken down in many of the shops.
“Paddy Power’s is changing, but I can’t change,” she said.
“In 22 years working, I never felt anything like the aggression he was screaming at me,” she said. “I’m afraid to be on the shop floor now. They want us on the shop floor more. This is hampering me from progressing my career.”
Sergeant Kevin Cassidy gave evidence of the attempted robbery of Harcourt Launderette.
He explained that Cunningham was on bail when he entered the shop at 11.30am on November 4 last year.
“He looked around and asked if he could pay with card or cash. He was told either,” said the sergeant, explaining that the defendant had then told the staff to open the till and give him money.
Sgt Cassidy explained that one of the three women working there at the time removed the key from the till, and the staff told him they could not access the till.
“He then became aggressive and went behind the counter to where two staff where. He attempted to reach the till. One woman intervened,” he continued.
Cunningham put his right hand around one woman’s neck and she was pushed back against a rail. The three women then managed to push him towards the door out of the shop.
Gardaí were able to identify him from CCTV and he was arrested a short time later.
Judge Codd heard that Cunningham had 86 previous convictions, including for theft, robbery and offensive weapons offences.
She imposed a three-year sentence for the threat to kill, and a consecutive three-year sentence for the attempted robbery. However, she suspended the final year of the attempted robbery sentence to facilitate his rehabilitation.
She noted that he had a ‘very traumatic upbringing’, was subjected to physical abuse as a child, had left school young and was ‘psychologically very vulnerable’.
Judge Codd also reinstated two years and four months of a four-year suspended sentence imposed by the court in October for burglary at Nock Nock Café in Ranelagh in August 2021.
He had breached the terms of the suspended sentence by committing a similar crime at a cafe on James’s Street for which he has since received a five-month sentence from Cloverhill District Court.