Northern Ireland

Border Fox Dessie O'Hare claims PTSD from time in prison

Dessie 'Border Fox' O'Hare, is claiming he has PTSD from his time in prison.
Dessie 'Border Fox' O'Hare, is claiming he has PTSD from his time in prison. Dessie 'Border Fox' O'Hare, is claiming he has PTSD from his time in prison.

CONVICTED INLA kidnapper Dessie O’Hare is appealing a jail term for a brutal assault, claiming his time in prison has left him suffering with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

O’Hare, known as the 'Border Fox' was previously jailed for cutting off part of two of dentist John O’Grady’s fingers during a horrific kidnapping ordeal in the 1980s.

He is currently serving a seven year jail term for an assault on a security guard, during which he almost lost an ear. The victim has since been forced to enter the witness protection scheme.

O'Hare was part of an organised crime gang when along with fellow former INLA figure Declan ‘Whacker’ Duffy, he held security worker Martin Byrne captive in Saggart, Co Dublin, on June 9, 2015.

A second man John Roche was also attacked, suffering a broken nose and a broken arm in the attack.

He was sentenced to seven years behind bars in April 2019 at the non-jury Special Criminal Court in Dublin. Judge Mr Justice Tony Hunt said O’Hare - from his republican activities - had an “appalling record” of violence.

O’Hare, from Newtownhamilton in south Armagh, was released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement in 2008 after spending almost 20 years in prison for the 1987 kidnapping of Mr O’Grady.

During 23 days in captivity, the dentist had the tips of his little fingers hacked off with a hammer and chisel.

O'Hare, who was at the time a senior member of the INLA, left the severed fingers in Carlow Cathedral along with a picture showing his victim's mutilated hands and a demand for IR£1.5 million.

In submissions to the Court of Criminal Appeal over his latest incarceration, O'Hare's legal team state that their client "had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his last, lengthy period of imprisonment at Portlaoise.

"Further imprisonment would be harder for him.

"It is respectively submitted that more weight should have been attributed to this factor and to other mitigating factors.

"The sentencing court had evidence before it, in a psychological report, of the very negative impact that his previous imprisonment had on the appellant.

"It was clear that further imprisonment would be harder for him than for other inmates. In his sixties, he was now facing into another significant period of imprisonment".

And as part of his appeal, O'Hare's defence team claims he was treated unfairly as his co-accused Duffy only received a six-year sentence.

"While it’s accepted the appellant had a somewhat greater role in the assault on Mr Roche, that assault was clearly a joint enterprise between the various participants including Mr Duffy," the papers state.

“It is submitted that they were equally culpable and that the differences in the roles played during the course of the joint enterprise were not such as to warrant divergent sentences.

“It can been seen that Mr Duffy committed the offences while he was released on licence for murder.

“This was a serious aggravating factor in the case and he has also had a conviction for false imprisonment in 2000.

“He was significantly younger than the appellant, which makes the prospect of a long sentence somewhat less daunting.”

At present, O’Hare is currently being held in the ‘D’ Block of the high security Portlaoise Prison.