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A Dublin crystal meth addict who committed 16 robberies within 12 months has been jailed for eight years.
Patrick Ryan (37) told Judge Martin Nolan that he'd had nowhere to live after his release from a three year sentence and ended up in a “crack house” where he took crystal meth.
Ryan said he spent all of the €51,000 he'd gotten from a legal settlement and found himself €13,000 in debt because of his crystal meth habit. He blamed the drug for his spate of robberies between January 2014 and January 2015.
Ryan, with an address at Friary Grove, Smithfield, Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to robbing cash amounts ranging from €136 to €1,400 at shops, petrol stations and businesses around the city between January 31, 2014 and January 4, 2015.
He also pleaded guilty to robbing phones and cash amounts from individuals over the same period.
He has 129 previous convictions, including 12 robberies, 18 aggravated burglaries and two false imprisonment offences.
Judge Nolan noted that Ryan's robberies “covered a complete ambit, with knives and syringes as weapons”.
He further noted that the ages of Ryan's victims ranged from young to elderly, with one man being 79-years-old, but acknowledged that no “actual violence” had been used in any of the crimes.
Judge Nolan said he was taking into account Ryan's guilty pleas, his “sad” background and genuine ambition of reform.
He imposed a ten year sentence with consecutive elements and suspended the final two years of the total term.