Serial hoax 999 caller given suspended sentence

By Sonya McLean

A man who made over 30 bogus 999 calls over the course of two years has been given a three-and -half-year suspended sentence.

James Kelly (32) of Rochford Green, Blackrock, Co. Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to six sample charges of knowingly making a false report on dates between February 2021 and March 2023. The court heard the maximum penalty available to the court was five years.

The court heard that gardaí responded to each false report to investigate, including house-to-house enquiries and trawling through hours of CCTV footage.

In one incident, Kelly claimed that he had been the victim of an attempted armed robbery. When gardaí responded to his 999 call, he met them and made a complaint. The follow-up investigation led to officers canvasing the local area for CCTV footage, including five cameras from the LUAS.

Kelly was seen on the footage but there was no suspect robber. One officer spent 30 days canvasing footage and four months following up on the case before it was concluded that there had been no crime.

Judge Pauline Codd commented at a previous sentence hearing last June that Kelly’s behaviour was a complete waste of garda time and resources.

Sentencing Kelly on Monday, she said he had caused great nuisance to people who have enough to be doing coping with their own workload.

Judge Codd said the frequencies with which the calls were made warranted a headline sentence of five years.

She took into account mitigation in the case including that urine analysis showing that Kelly has tested negative for various illicit drugs, having previously struggled with addiction.

Judge Codd also noted from various testimonials that Kelly works in a voluntary capacity at a local football club and has shown that he is capable of living in a pro-social manner.

She imposed a sentence of three and half years, which she suspended in full on strict conditions including that he engage with the Probation Service for one year and engage with various addiction support services as directed by the Probation Service.

Detective Garda Gary Burns told John Moher BL, prosecuting, at an earlier sentence hearing that a call received on January 13, 2022 prompted the investigation into the case.

The 999 call received that day reported that a fight had broken out in a particular pub and males were throwing bottles at each other. Gardaí immediately responded but when they arrived a minute later there were three people in the bar and it was very quickly established there had been no such disturbance.

The 999 caller had identified himself as James and further investigation led to the nomination of Kelly as a suspect.

Kelly gave a voluntary statement to gardaí in March 2023 having previously been arrested, detained and interviewed. He made no admissions during the initial questioning but took responsibility in his voluntary statement.

He said he wanted to apologise for wasting people’s time but said he couldn’t tell why he made the calls. “I don’t know really. I think I need to see someone professionally,” he said.

Kelly has two previous convictions for possession of articles and one for a public order offence.

Det Gda Burns agreed with Pieter Le Vert BL, defending, that his client has ongoing issues with drugs and counsel said Kelly is a self-confessed compulsive liar.

Mr Le Vert said Kelly was addicted to both cocaine and alcohol. He has been trying to get into drug rehabilitation but has not succeeded in finding a place to date.

Mr Le Vert said his client is now drug-free and has applied for work but has not secured a job to date. He is due to become a father later in the year.