{"id":199161,"date":"2025-12-18T23:19:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T23:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/199161\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T23:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T23:19:08","slug":"simon-harris-tells-of-fear-caused-by-threats-to-family-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/199161\/","title":{"rendered":"Simon Harris tells of fear caused by threats to family \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris<\/a> said online threats by a social media<\/a> troll had \u201cviolated\u201d his family and made him believe his young daughter was in real danger. <\/p>\n

Mr Harris told a sentencing hearing for a woman convicted of sending the messages<\/a> to his Instagram account that he was \u201csickened and angered\u201d and his family were hurt and scared by her actions. <\/p>\n

In a victim-impact statement submitted to Dublin District Court<\/a>, he said he had had to think about whether to provide a statement to the hearing but on balance, and with family support, had decided he should. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe would rather not be doing this but I do think it\u2019s important that the individual before the court understands the impact of her actions against my family and against my little child,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much of the world is online these days but I want you to know that when you hide behind your keyboard, your words still have real impact and your threats cause hurt, pain and worry and pose danger. <\/p>\n

\u201cHow would you feel to be reading that someone wants to harm your young child and threatening the most heinous and despicable of crimes?\u201d he asked. <\/p>\n

The questions related to Sandra Barry (40) of Tor an R\u00ed, Balgaddy, Lucan, Co Dublin, who was sentenced to six months in jail on Thursday for the threats made last August. <\/p>\n

Mr Harris pointed out that they came at a time when he and his family had already suffered from being at the receiving end of previous threats.<\/p>\n

Mr Harris\u2019s statement said he did not know the intention behind Barry\u2019s messages, whether it was to carry out the threats or encourage others to do so, or if it was to intimidate him out of his job \u201cknowing that the way to hurt and scare any parent is to threaten their innocent child\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cOr is it simply done without any thought given to it and the pain and worry it causes?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in a world where threats of violence to political figures are becoming more commonplace and now also one where people\u2019s families seem fair game too. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you decided to threaten my child, you violated our family.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Three minutes of madness\u2019: Woman sentenced for \u2018catastrophic\u2019 online threats to Simon HarrisOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Harris said the woman\u2019s actions were not consequence-free and nor could they be. <\/p>\n

\u201cI genuinely believe your actions endangered us and my daughter by posting a threat implying harm and the most appalling harm which I can\u2019t even find it within myself to write the word,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn a world where such threats can motivate others to act, I am sickened and angered by the danger you posed and the pain and hurt you have caused us.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris said online threats by a social media troll had \u201cviolated\u201d his family and made him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5721,8411,61,60,43,70,58],"class_list":["post-199161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-district-court","tag-dublin-district-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-simon-harris","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}