A Westmeath drug addict who carried out a string of robberies in 2004 has had his part-suspended sentence reactivated after he failed to co-operate with the probation service upon his release from prison.
Lee King (22 ) of Little Meadows, Clonmellon, County Westmeath and originally from Shangan Gardens, Ballymun, had been given a four year sentence by Judge Katherine Delahunt in March 2006 at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
She suspended the last year of the sentence on condition that he liaise with the probation service after noting that King had a "difficult past" and was struggling with a chronic heroin addiction.
King was 17 years old and homeless, when he robbed five young people of their mobile phones in St Stephen’s Green and acted as lookout during the robbery of two English tourists in the city centre.
Judge Delahunt noted however that one of his victims was aged only 12 at the time and said "the victim impact statements makes sad reading".
King pleaded guilty to the robbery of the English couple and five robberies of mobile phones and an attempted robbery in St Stephen’s Green between February 17 and August 29, 2004.
King’s probation officer, Catriona Brosnan, told Judge Delahunt that she had written to King twice at the address supplied to her in order to arrange meetings after his release from custody but got no response.
She later learned that he did not live at the address and was homeless. She contacted a number of hostels and shelters in Dublin but failed to find King.
Ms Sandra Frayne BL, defending, told Judge Delahunt at the sentence hearing in 2006 that King was 11 years old when he witnessed his mother jump off the Ballymun towers to her death. His father, who is serving a 10 year jail term in Portlaoise prison, didn’t have an active role in his life.
She said that King had never got any assistance for his drug addiction, which he developed when he was 14 years old, and said he had "fallen through the cracks in the system" having spent most of his teenage years "in and out of institutions".
