A man sentenced to a 2½-year prison sentence for making threats and criminal damage thought “shadow men” were after him during a four-hour rooftop standoff with armed gardaí, a court heard.
Martin Cunningham (32), of Sheephill Green in Blanchardstown, pled guilty to three charges for threatening a security guard, producing a knife, and performing criminal damage from the roof of a house in Castaheany in two separate incidents.
A security guard in the Lidl in Clonsilla had called the Garda, noting he had been threatened by a man with a Stanley knife shortly before 10pm on February 22nd, 2024.
The court heard that a woman and a man, later identified as Cunningham, had been observed on CCTV footage throwing oranges around the shop, before attempting to purchase alcohol.
They were denied the purchase as they did not have identification.
The court heard Cunningham then threw a lemon towards the tills before being escorted off the premises by a security guard who he then threatened with a fire extinguisher.
“I’ll bounce this off your f**king head,” Cunningham had said, noted prosecuting barrister Simon Matthews.
He put down the fire extinguisher and proceeded to take a black and yellow Stanley blade from his pocket and was said to have threatened the security guard saying: “I’ll cut you to bits and kill you.”
In a victim impact statement, the security guard said he was left in “fear of his life” and that his partner had asked him to quit his job following the incident. He could not do so, the court heard, as it would financially ruin the couple.
Garda Eva Mahedy of Blanchardstown Garda station told the court that on a separate occasion, on September 15th, 2025, the Armed Support Unit (ASU) and local gardaí engaged in a four-hour standoff with Cunningham who was on the roof of his mother’s house.
At 4am, Cunningham was on the roof of three houses on Castlegrange Avenue and began to throw solar panels and roof tiles at 20 assembled gardaí, the court was told.
During the standoff, he said he would shoot gardaí if he had been in possession of a gun.
He caused €10,200 of damage to the roofs and to a nearby car, before jumping down and attempting to escape from gardaí and being arrested.
During the incident, he had been under the influence of cocaine, vodka and a “few bumps” of ketamine and believed that “shadow men” were after him.
He also thought the ASU had attempted to climb the roof, but Mahedy said they had not.
Cunningham had been awake for two days at this point and previously thought he was being pursued by gardaí while under the influence and had hid in a local river.
Defence barrister Oisín Clarke said his client was “acting the maggot in the store” and had apologised to gardaí for being on the roof of the house and had been under the influence of drugs.
He said Cunningham had begun engaging with professionals for his drug use and was “dealing with his anger issues”.
Clarke said the lighting technician, who also has a forklift driving qualification, had faced “tragedy” as an uncle he was close to had died shortly before these incidents.
The Dublin Circuit Court judge, Martin Nolan, said gardaí took a “very patient approach” with Cunningham during the standoff, and acknowledging his addiction issues, past offending and set a headline sentence of four years.
He reduced the sentence to 2½ years due to the mitigation of his early plea and backdated it to the time of his arrest in September 2025.