Kevin Caulfield
THIS is the convicted Croke Park streaker quizzed over a sickening sabotage attack that could have led to the death of a Garda and his family.
Kevin Caulfield (36), from New Ross, Co. Wexford, was arrested at his home last Friday and confronted by gardaí with brake cables that had been severed from a local officer’s family car early on Christmas morning.
The brakes were severed from the New Ross Garda’s civilian vehicle and expanding foam sprayed into the exhaust pipe and the drains of his home in the early hours of December 25.
In a shocking interview, Caulfield this week admitted to the Sunday World leaving up to 100 voicemails at the local Garda station hours before the sabotage attack – warning Gardaí he would “lure them to a house” filled with gas cylinders and “blow them and the house clean up”.
However, Caulfield denies being the saboteur behind the attack on the popular Garda, saying he personally “liked” the officer involved, adding: “Whoever did it they should have done it to a real p**ck!”
Troubled Caulfield – who says he is living under a “death threat” and admits being questioned in relation to an arson attack on a traffic warden’s vehicle several years ago, told the Sunday World: “I was arrested... interrogated. But I didn’t do it.
“I was just took in and questioned.”
Caulfield said he had rang Gardaí up to 100 times on Christmas Eve trying to sort out a situation where he had been threatened.
He told them “I’m going to get a bullet in the head” and had resorted to threats when he didn’t get through to an officer.
“I phoned them on Christmas Eve, there was a lot of phone calls trying to sort out another thing,” said Caulfield.
“I told them I’d lure them up to my house on Neville Street and I’d fill it with gas cylinders and I’d step back and shoot it with a .22.
“I said I’d blow the house up with gas cylinders and I’d lure them up and I’d step back with a .22 rifle and the gas would explode. I’d blow them and the house clean up.
“It’s a recording on the machine and I left that on Christmas Eve.
“They played all the recordings back to me. There must have been a hundred phone-calls.”
“There was another where I said they were all too busy drinking eggnog to answer the phone.”
Speaking of the circumstances of his arrest on Friday of last week, Caulfield said: “They came down here and made a big scene down here so that everyone would see what was going on and bashed the door in.”
After he was brought to the station, he said he was cautioned that he was being arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage to the Garda’s vehicle.
“They started producing the break cables and all of that. They put a canister of expanding foam to me.
“There was no fingerprints... I don’t know, maybe they might have someone else’s. Someone had to plan that you know. I’ve no alibi. I didn’t go anywhere Christmas Day.
“I stayed in my house. It was the same last Christmas.”
Caulfield said he told Gardaí he didn’t have anything to do with the potentially fatal sabotage attack.
“I told them: ‘You’ve the wrong person. I’ve no animosity between me and [the Garda involved].’
“I’ve no problem with that man at all. Whoever done that they should have done it to a p**ck!
“[The officer] is a nice man, badge or no badge. I told them that, but like they’re scratching their heads.
“Everyone’s saying it’s me, but I’d not a thing to do with it.”
Asked whether he expects to be charged in connection with the sabotage attack, Caulfield said that he doesn’t, but added that if he is he will fight the charges in the courts.
“I’m not, no,” he said.
“But the way they put it in the [local] paper they [the Gardaí] made out that they caught the suspect for it.”
Asked if he understood why he would feature as a suspect after making threatening phone-calls to New Ross Garda Station hours before the sabotage attack, Caulfield said he didn’t.
“I say I’m going to go out and kill somebody and someone gets killed in Donegal... are they going to come down and kick my door in?” Caulfield said.
“No, come on, think about. What they done down here, they know what they done, they f**ked up coming down here and putting a big show on. Wait till I go to court to put on my show.
“They can charge me all they want. I’ll take them to the High Court. They haven’t got no evidence.”
Caulfield is well known to Gardaí in his home town.
In July of 2013, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison at Wexford District Court for cultivating €12,000 in cannabis at his home.
Caulfield streaking at the 2003 Leinster hurling final in Croke Park
At the time, the court heard he had already clocked up 27 previous convictions, which included a conviction for streaking at the Wexford v Kilkenny 2003 Leinster hurling final in Croke Park.
The court also heard that there were underlying issues with Caulfield’s reluctance to deal with his primary issue, namely his addiction problem.
Gardaí say a file in connection with the attack on the Garda’s home and car is currently being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.