{"id":669555,"date":"2026-10-30T05:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T05:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/669555\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T05:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T05:12:13","slug":"dublin-man-threatened-to-kill-woman-he-met-on-instagram-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/669555\/","title":{"rendered":"Dublin man threatened to kill woman he met on Instagram \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man previously jailed for assaulting a social media influencer made repeated threats to kill or cause serious harm to a woman he met on Instagram<\/a>, a court has heard.<\/p>\n

Craig O\u2019Brien (30) sent messages threatening to \u201cbutcher\u201d the woman and saying: \u201cI swear to God, I\u2019m gonna kill you.\u201d <\/p>\n

He also threatened \u201cto blow her and her boyfriend\u2019s head off\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll pay some crackhead butcher and you won\u2019t know where it came from,\u201d he wrote in private messages sent to the woman\u2019s Instagram account.<\/p>\n

In 46 messages sent on three dates between July 27th, 2024 and September 1st, 2024, he called the woman a \u201cdumb tramp\u201d, a \u201cstupid b***h\u201d and a \u201cdirty rat\u201d.<\/p>\n

In one message he threatened to carry out an \u201cacid attack\u201d on her face, saying \u201cthat\u2019s not an empty threat\u201d. <\/p>\n

In other messages he said he would \u201cstalk\u201d the woman online until she made a \u201cf**k up\u201d and turned on her account location information.<\/p>\n

Det Garda Anthony Cunningham told prosecuting barrister Lisa Dempsey that the woman took the threats seriously and felt unsafe.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien, of Comet Road, Ballyfermot, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court<\/a> to making a threat to kill or cause serious harm and harassment.<\/p>\n

The offence of harassment comes with statutory restrictions preventing publication of any material likely to identify the victim.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien was previously sentenced to two years and three months, with the final nine months suspended for 18 months, for an \u201cunprovoked and unwarranted attack\u201d on social media influencer Charleen Murphy at the Grafton Capital Hotel in Dublin 2 on February 10th, 2023.<\/p>\n

During his arrest for this offence, O\u2019Brien told garda\u00ed that \u201cinfluencers were ganging up on him and harassing him, and they [influencers] deserved it\u201d. <\/p>\n

Defence barrister Miska Hanahoe told the court her client was in a drug-induced psychosis at the time and genuinely believed social media influencers were out to get him.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien has 12 previous convictions including two for assault.<\/p>\n

In relation to the latest case, Cunningham told defence counsel Fionnuala O\u2019Sullivan that O\u2019Brien and the victim were not personally known to each other.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan said her client could not explain why he contacted the victim but that \u201calcohol was almost definitely a factor\u201d. She said he does not specifically remember much of the offending and accepts he did it, and believes it was disgusting and unforgivable behaviour.<\/p>\n

Counsel said O\u2019Brien went into custody in March 2025 for these offences and has been making \u201chuge efforts\u201d to rehabilitate himself while on remand.<\/p>\n

Judge Orla Crowe said this was a very serious case. She ordered a risk assessment from the Probation Service and adjourned the case to January 15th for finalisation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man previously jailed for assaulting a social media influencer made repeated threats to kill or cause serious…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[823,61,542,60,1226,43,235774,53454,15300],"class_list":["post-669555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-facebook","tag-ie","tag-instagram","tag-ireland","tag-meta","tag-news","tag-phone-apps","tag-threads","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669555","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=669555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}