A man who was last month convicted of murder has today been sentenced for the false imprisonment of a five-year-old girl.
Jerry McGrath, 24, from Dundrum, Co Tipperary, tried to take the girl out of her parents’ house while they were asleep in another room.
McGrath was last month convicted of the murder of Sylvia Roche Kelly in the Clarion Hotel in Limerick in December 2007.
Today, he was brought before Clonmel Circuit Court following an incident in the early hours of 9 October 2007.
The court heard McGrath had taken a considerable amount of drink when he walked into a house in Dundrum though an unlocked back door at 3.30am.
McGrath went through the house looking into the parents' bedroom before going into a room in which one of their two daughters was sleeping.
It appears the young girl woke up and to stop her crying McGrath put his hands around her neck so hard that some of the blood vessels burst in her face.
He then lifted her up and tried to take her out of the house.
The girl’s mother heard McGrath going down the stairs and ran down after him.
The girl’s father woke up and managed to get his daughter away from McGrath before holding him down in the sitting-room until a garda who lives nearby arrived.
McGrath later told gardaí he panicked when the young girl woke up but that he had intended to take her out of the house.
The court heard that he initially had not entered the house with that intention.
Judge Tom Teehan sentenced McGrath to ten years for false imprisonment, eight years for burglary and four years for assault causing harm.
The sentence is to run concurrent with the life sentence he is currently serving.
