'Neighbour from hell' is jailed for harassment of Ballinalee family

Jason Coady (28), 111 McEoin Park was sentenced to eight months in prison with five months suspended after he pleaded guilty to harassing the Carrigy family on various date between August 27 2016 and November 20 2016.

Almost all of the offending, which was alluded to by Una Carrigy, wife of Longford County Council Cathaoirleach Cllr Micheál Carrigy, took place in Ballinalee while Mr Coady was renting a house next door to the Carrigy’s home and post office establishment.

In her direct evidence to court, Mrs Carrigy said she and her family had until May 2016 enjoyed a healthy relationship with the owner of the property Mr Coady would later take out a lease on.

She said it was at around that time she first encountered the accused in an incident she believed ignited the start of the frosty relationship between herself and Mr Coady.

“He (Mr Coady) was just a very difficult man to deal with,” she said.

“So many times he had confronted us up until August about various issues. He was totally unapproachable and you couldn’t reason with him.

“This one particular day I think was the start of the difficult relationship. Jason pulled up and unloaded two big St Bernard dogs which ran into our backyard.

“I knew my two children (aged four and one and half at the time) were out in the back garden on their own.

“I was upstairs doing some housework and I was looking out the window and to save them I did shout out the window at Jason. There was multiple people there and no attempt was made to retrieve their dogs from our property. I was just concerned my children would get hurt.”

Mrs Carrigy, a teacher by profession, said she was convinced it was that uneasy exchange which effectively led Mr Coady into waging a campaign of upset and intimidation against her and her family.
She said in the moments that followed, Mr Coady stormed round to her front door and attempted to kick it in.

A couple of weeks later she said a further incident occurred, this time with the 28-year-old exotic pet lover appearing to hold his phone out while she and her two children were in the back garden of their house.

Fighting back tears as she recalled the events of two and a half years ago, Mrs Carrigy outlined that she effectively became a prisoner in her own home by consciously taking the decision to refrain from letting her children play in the backyard.

“After the couple of interactions with him there was just no reasoning with him and I took a stance of every time there was an incident I would report it,” she said.

Mrs Carrigy also recalled how on two occasions between August and November Mr Coady followed her twice with both occurring while she was expecting her third child.

The first took place as she attempted to drop her eldest child to the local national school.

“I was bringing the two children out and Jason was sitting in the car with the lights on, music blaring and when I had one child in I was bending down to put the other child in and Jason pulled up alongside my car and stared in at us,” she said.

“He followed me up to the school and was staring in the window at me. I had got into the car with my two children and he had pulled across the crossroads beside the Stag’s Head and followed me up to the school.”

Due to the nature of that incident, she opted against dropping her youngest child to creche as that particular facility was in a more rural setting and left her “afraid of what he might do” had he continued to pursue her.

The second incident took place as Mrs Carrigy, this time accompanied by her husband and two children, exited Dunnes Stores in Longford town.

“I was due to have my third (child) in the following fortnight and my husband was in the passenger seat,” she said.

“As I was coming out, he (Mr Coady) was coming out of town. I didn’t know it was him but he did a u-turn on the road and drove bumper to bumper all the way up to St Mel’s Cathedral out onto the turn off for the Mall and then pulled away.”

Three further episodes in October in which Mrs Carrigy described as a weekend of “torture” were similarly relayed to the court with claims Mr Coady would routinely park his car directly in front of the Carrigy’s petrol pumps, stare in the windows of their home and intimidate customers.

“The very next day I was in the house with the two children, getting on the dinner and my husband had just finished work just after 6pm.

“As he was leaving the post office he went out onto the street and was talking to a neighbour who was at a wedding that weekend.

“Jason pulled up with friends and stood and waited at the door of our house and blocked him trying to get into the door of the house.

“At this stage we had adopted an approach of no interaction and make sure the CCTV got everything so Micheál turned away from the house and went back into the shop and Jason blocked him from going into the door of the shop.”

A member of the public likewise told of how she had encountered the accused in a confrontation with Mr Carrigy at the doorway of the post office.

In a separate incident after Mr Coady had vacated the property beside them, Mrs Carrigy said the defendant’s partner had hurled abuse at her husband in the middle of Longford town and on the day he was due to invite Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to the county.

She said it was her belief Mr Coady was convinced she was trying to have his dogs taken off him and rubbished claims she had called him a paedophile.

Inspector Dave Jordan from Granard Garda Station said due to the level of anxiety the Carrigys had been under, an adult behaviour warning was served on Mr Coady on September 5 2016.

Evidence was also heard of how Mr Coady had been convicted of a Section 2 assault on Mr Carrigy at Longford District Court in May 2017.

Mr Coady also decided to give evidence and vowed to steer clear of the Carrigys as he had previously promised when the case was originally struck out on technical grounds in last year.

He said he too had been the victim of harassment by Mr Carrigy and his wife and denied many of the allegations made against him.

“I would love your Honour if you had four hours of your spare time to look through this CCTV because there are parts picked and pulled.

“Have you seen me kicking in a door? Mr Coady asked members of the gardaí inside the court.

“I have seen the CCTV and it does show me going into the shop with a big monkey dog. I have been harassed by them also. I tried to make a complaint against the Carrigys for harassing me. When I moved in yes I had two dogs, yes there was no fence between the two places and that’s when it got nasty.

“My dogs did run into her garden, she did shout out the window saying ‘control those wild beasts’ but she went out and knocked on the front door and I told her there would be a fence put up in a few days and the dogs would do no harm to her kids.”

Mr Coady, who revealed how he kept tropical pets such as crocodiles, monkeys and racoons in his home, rejected claims he had followed Mrs Carrigy and blocked the front passage to their home when work was in the process of being done.

In giving his verdict, Judge Hughes said despite the charges being of “some vintage”, there was no escaping Mr Coady’s culpability.

As he complemented Mrs Carrigy for the way in which she had conducted herself both in court and in her attempts to reason with Mr Coady, Judge Hughes said his campaign of intimidation and harassment had left her to all intents and purposes a “hostage in her own home”.

He likewise referenced the incident when Mr Carrigy was accosted in Longford town on the day he was preparing to welcome Taoiseach Leo Varadkar as a moment of “severe embarrassment” for the local councillor.

He said the main mitigating factors to draw from the affair was Mr Coady’s guilty plea and the fact there had been no further incidents since the charges were entered.

“You come across as a bit of an odd character and difficult to handle to say the least,” he told Mr Coady.

“You don’t understand the effect of your actions and the effect that has on your neighbours.

“What you think is normal behaviour, most other people would consider abnormal and I feel you take offence and insult easily and it then becomes an overbearing obsession to you.

“Your insight and judgement into your actions are flawed, your reaction is childish and in the legal sense you committed the offence of harassment by your persistent bad behaviour and persistent misconduct to the Carrigy family. “

He sentenced Mr Coady to eight months in prison, suspending five of those for a period of three years.