The president of the Circuit Court has branded drug barons using children as foot soldiers as being “like a cancer”, saying “all State resources should be used to catch and lock them up”.
Judge Keenan Johnson’s comments came in the case of two boys involved in a drug-debt intimidation shooting at a house in Mullingar, Co Westmeath.
One of the pair also carried out attacks on houses, torched four cars and carried out a drug-debt intimidation campaign across three midlands counties. He was given a six-year suspended sentence.
That youth, now 17, and a second boy, the same age, pleaded guilty to recklessly discharging the home-made “slammer” shotgun at about 1.30pm on July 14th at Ardleigh Park in the Co Westmeath town.
The teenager who fired the gun admitted a further charge of criminal damage to the door of the house.
The pair cannot be named because they are minors with the right to anonymity.
They were 16 and had no prior convictions at the time of the incident, Mullingar Circuit Criminal Court heard.
One youth also admitted to criminal damage and arson offences in 2025 targeting seven properties mainly in Westmeath but also in Offaly and Longford.
The same teenager also pleaded guilty to possessing a blank-firing handgun, blank rounds of ammunition and €7,000 of cannabis.
Johnson described the incidents as “really shocking and very, very disturbing”.
The case reminded him, he said, of the Charles Dickens character Fagin and his team of child offenders, but the drug barons were “far more sinister and a lot more dangerous”.
Sentencing, he rebuked the “malignant forces” who “prey on children like the accused, plying them with drugs, building debts, to manipulate them to act as their foot soldiers in completion of their nefarious activities”.
He characterised them as “the lowest of low”.
Det Garda Kevin Lennon was part of a team assembled to investigate incidents of arson and criminal damage connected to drug debts in counties Westmeath, Offaly and Longford.
In evidence, he said one of the youths was charged after his home was searched and his phone was seized as part of another investigation into a drug and firearm find.
An examination of the device uncovered a series of videos and messages linking the boy to the drug-debt intimidation incidents in Mullingar, Tullamore, Rochfortbridge, Finea and Edgeworthstown from February to May 2025.
A video on the teenager’s phone showed him destroying evidence by setting a petrol can and gloves on fire.
The footage captured the sound of victims screaming. His phone messages contained discussions with another individual about whether he would produce a gun if occupants came out of the houses.
Victim impact statements were read to the court, including one from a woman who said she feared for her baby’s life. Another victim stated she was left living in fear, and the court heard that some families were left with boarded-up windows until they could afford replacements.
Two videos of the incident were found on the boy’s phone, including a message from a character known in his interactions with the teenager as either “D” or “Bob Marley”.
The teenager had explained that some of the videos were filmed on his phone and others were sent to him. He told gardaí he was afraid to speak out, believing he would end up dead, and stated that “it was them or me”, adding that individuals higher up the chain had drawn him into the activity and placed him under intense pressure.
Both defendants told the court they had drug debts at the time and were forced to take part in the gun attack.
The teen who fired the gun had already served a period in custody on remand in a detention centre, and the judge sent him into custody until a date in December, after which he will have a three-year sentence suspended over him for the next five years.
His co-accused, who faced the bulk of the charges, stopped coming to Garda attention after moving and getting work.
He received a series of concurrent sentences, the longest being six years on condition he does not reoffend in the next eight years.
He must also pay €14,500 to his victims in a series of instalments to be completed by June 1st, 2027.
The teen will also have to complete 240 hours of community service. The judge indicated the suspended sentences will also come into effect after he turns 18 and the order is to be finalised in December.
The judge noted their remorse and the severe pressure that led to them being “preyed upon by sinister forces”.