A man who came to Ireland from Ghana in Autumn 2021 has been jailed for two years after he trapped his former wife in an apartment at knife point as Garda\u00ed tried to rescue her for over three hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anthony Yankson (37) of Sherrard St, Dublin 1, who appeared before the Circuit Criminal Court, pleaded guilty to a single count of false imprisonment, with a charge of production of an article taken into consideration, relating to the events of the 29th of March 2022.<\/p>\n
At a previous hearing on the facts last March, Detective Inspector Ken Moore agreed with prosecuting counsel, Emer N\u00ed Ch\u00faag\u00e1in BL, that Garda\u00ed had been alerted to an incident in a top-floor apartment of a house on Sherrard St, Dublin, where neighbours had reported hearing a woman screaming and a series of bangs at 8:40 am.<\/p>\n
Although officers knocked on the door for 30 minutes, there was no answer, and efforts to secure a key were unsuccessful, before they were called to another incident and left the premises.<\/p>\n
At 12:40 p.m., another report was made of banging and screaming from the same location. When officers got to the door, they heard a woman screaming for help after they made it known that they were Garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n
A key they were given was unable to unlock the door after the lock system was damaged. A man who described himself as \u201cTony\u201d said that he would not open the door and that he had a knife. As the man was shouting, the two Garda\u00ed called for backup from the Armed Support Unit, which arrived at 12:53 pm.<\/p>\n
The newly arrived officers attempted to engage with Yankson, who repeatedly refused to open the door or put the knife down.<\/p>\n
During their discussions with the accused, the officers managed to get him to agree that they would use breaching equipment to open the door, which they pushed in \u201ca little bit\u201d, Ms N\u00ed Ch\u00faag\u00e1in said.<\/p>\n
Through the space, they could see the accused with one arm around a woman while he brandished a large kitchen knife in the other, preventing her from leaving the apartment.<\/p>\n
The officers said that the man was \u201cagitated\u201d and that the woman was showing signs of distress at being unable to free herself as her husband pointed the knife towards her neck, stomach, and back.<\/p>\n
The court heard that, in all, 10-20 members of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na were deployed to the scene, where negotiations lasted three hours and 30 minutes.<\/p>\n
At one point, members of the ASU had to put their foot in the door to prevent Yankson, who had earlier urinated on the floor inside, from closing it. The officers said that such was the level of his agitation that they feared for the life of the woman as well as their own lives. They described Yankson\u2019s actions as \u201cchaotic\u201d and \u201cvery animated\u201d.<\/p>\n
He claimed that he didn\u2019t believe they were really Grada\u00ed, saying that he believed his wife was cheating on him. During the incident, the accused was playing \u201creligious music\u201d and said that he wished that his wife would be hurt but not him.<\/p>\n
As the incident unfolded, Yankson became \u201cmore aggressive and irritated\u201d and began to say that it was ok if he and his wife both died as he moved the knife to point towards various parts of her body. At one point, Garda\u00ed with shields were in the narrow corridor to ensure the safety of the negotiating officers, the court heard.<\/p>\n
At 4:10 pm, the woman had become tearful and \u201cvery frightened\u201d, the accused pointed the knife at her stomach as Garda\u00ed told him to drop the weapon.<\/p>\n
When the woman suddenly tried to break away from the accused, officers pushed the door in with tasers and guns drawn. As the woman attempted to flee, the accused tried to stab her in the back but did not make contact.<\/p>\n
After Yanskson was hit with one round of taser, he was not taken down and moved into the kitchen, where there were more knives. A second round of taser took him down, whereupon he was handcuffed and brought to Mountjoy Garda station.<\/p>\n
When the injured party spoke of the lead-up to the events, she said that there had been a series of arguments between her and the accused over the previous four or five days.<\/p>\n
She said that he had been speaking about \u201cspiritual healing\u201d and \u201cvoodoo\u201d and prevented her from going to work after insisting on accompanying her to a hair appointment she had made.<\/p>\n
She said that Yankson had called her 20 times the previous day after she had gone for a drink with her friend to get away from him for a while.<\/p>\n
The woman said that she had tried to escape by using a knife to open the door, as Yankson had withheld the key.<\/p>\n
When Yankson was interviewed, he said that he had the knife because he was afraid of the Garda\u00ed\u2019s guns, and that he \u201cdidn\u2019t know\u201d what came over him.<\/p>\n
The victim described being unable to sleep after the incident and being afraid to be alone. She said she would wake up \u201creplaying\u201d the events in her mind. She was unable to stay in the apartment and lost her rent and deposit, she said.<\/p>\n
Defending counsel, Seoirse \u00d3 D\u00fanlaing SC, argued that his client has no previous convictions while acknowledging that his actions caused \u201ca great degree of emotional and psychological trauma\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said that the victim had said that Yankson was \u201cpossessed by voodoo\u201d, was \u201ctalking about voodoo a lot\u201d, and said that his family \u201clikes voodoo\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr \u00d3 D\u00fanlaing said that the accused has a diagnosis of \u201ccannabis dependency\u201d, and unbeknownst to his wife, had a history of schizophrenia from Ghana. The court heard Yankson suffers from \u201csevere mental illness\u201d.<\/p>\n
After he was arrested, he spent 108 days in custody before he was released. He has been on bail since mid 2023 and is not working.<\/p>\n
The court heard specialist evidence that the accused was not known to mental health services in Ireland before the incident.<\/p>\n
He now attends a clinic in Dublin once every two weeks and receives anti-psychotic medication in injections. He was described as being \u201ccooperative\u201d and that he understands his diagnosis and the importance of his treatment plan.<\/p>\n
Mr \u00d3 D\u00fanlaing said that his client is trying to get a job and that he is offering a \u201cmost profuse apology\u201d for his actions.<\/p>\n
Having heard the facts, Judge Crowe ordered a probation report in respect of the accused, who was remanded on continuing bail to appear again today, the 8th of June.<\/p>\n
He was sentenced to four years in prison with the final two years suspended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who came to Ireland from Ghana in Autumn 2021 has been jailed for two years after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54,1115,210279,61,60,210280,43],"class_list":["post-489565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-doestic-violence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-ilness","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489565","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=489565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}