A 32-year-old man who staged a fake kidnapping in an attempt to extort €50,000 from his family has been sentenced to three years in prison.
Liam Ward with addresses at Rowan Heights, Drogheda, and Meeting House Lane, Mullingar, was found guilty at Mullingar Circuit Court last Friday.
He was sentenced this morning to five years with the last two years suspended following a plea from his family.
The court was told that Ward's partner visited his sister Brenda and father at their business premises in Tallaght on 14 February 2007 with photographs of Liam bound and gagged with a sawn-off shotgun pointed to his head.
The pictures contained a scrawled note demanding €50,000 that evening or they would next see Liam in a closed casket.
Garda surveillance led to Mr Ward being seen in a car coming from Drogheda to Dublin where he was to be handed over to his father in exchange for an envelope, which contained not money, but newspaper.
However, when gardaí saw Liam calmly pay for petrol at a filling station, they believed the kidnapping might be a hoax and arrested him and the car driver later that evening.
Passing sentence, Judge Tony Hunt said this was an unusual but very serious incident.
He said Ward had carried out a phoney scam to try to get money he had no claim to and had treated his family in a despicable fashion.
