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A businessman who subjected his niece to a five-year campaign of hateful text messages has been jailed for a year.
Martin Hughes sent dozens of sexually explicit and threatening text messages to his niece Michelle Doherty between 2011 and 2016, bringing her to the brink of suicide.
Doherty, now 44, even moved to Spain to escape anonymous texting, but was devastated when the 68-year-old began texting her there.
The content of the messages was so disturbing that Judge John Aylmer told the Letterkenny Circuit Court in Co Donegal that he only wanted a sample of the messages.
Judge John Aylmer said this was one of the worst harassment cases he has ever had to deal with, saying the texts had a “devastating effect” on Doherty’s life.
He also condemned Hughes for showing no signs of remorse and suggested he was justified in some way for running the hate-filled campaign.
He added that he did not agree with the defense attorney’s suggestions that only 50 derogatory text messages were sent to Ms. Doherty.
Among the messages sent to Ms. Doherty were text messages from Hughes saying that he hoped she would die of AIDS, in addition to calling her a whore, whore and whore.
In another text message, he threatened to cut her throat.
Hughes, a 68-year-old father and grandfather from Quigley’s Point, pleaded guilty to a single count of stalking.
Gardaí informed the court of an extensive investigation to find the identity of the owner of the unregistered Northern Ireland phone that was used to send the text messages.
After a thorough investigation, Gardaí finally located Hughes, who was hiding his phone in a cardboard box in his garage.
The court heard how Ms Doherty’s life fell apart when she began receiving anonymous text messages, including some that even threatened to cut her throat.
She moved to Spain and changed her phone number, but was devastated when she started receiving vile text messages there.
So vile were the texts that Judge Aylmer had asked for only a “sample of them” in public hearing.
Garda Detective Martin Egan told the court that Ms. Doherty contacted Gardai and a full investigation was launched.
He said the public might think it is easy to trace a phone, but that it is not easy to trace an unregistered Northern Ireland registered mobile due to jurisdictional and other issues.
However, working with the European Police organization Interpol, Gardfai eventually traced the phone back to Hughes.
Hughes had worked in Scotland, where he ran a successful construction company, and had returned home to shop and build pubs and other business interests.
On September 29, 2016, Gardai came home to Quigley’s Point with a search warrant and Hughes led them to a corner of his garage where he kept the phone used to send text messages in a cardboard box.
When interviewed at Buncrana Garda station, he admitted to texting Ms Doherty.
Although the number of sexually explicit text messages could not be disclosed, Detective Egan said there were 438 contacts between Doherty and Hughes’ various phones.
Speaking by video link from Spain, a tearful Doherty, 44, described the five years of her ordeal during which she said she became depressed and committed suicide.
She said that she physically vomited at times when reading the text messages and was paranoid about who was sending them.
She added: “I felt sick and scared and didn’t know what to do. Will the Gardai believe me that I am not that person? My dignity was in tatters. I had no enemies or former associates who did this.”
“I would throw up when I read some of them. I would beg them to tell me what I had done, but the responses were getting worse and they were clearly enjoying my stress.”
She became so paranoid and scared that she lost the use of her limbs and had to get her mother to take her to work as a caregiver at Carndonagh Community Hospital.
However, the texting persisted and she decided to move to Spain to start over, but she didn’t know anyone.
The texting continued and she said she was gradually losing her mind.
She returned to Ireland, where she said that at least her family could take care of her if something happened to her.
The texting continued and she decided to move to New York to try to start over, but after a few weeks she broke her neck in a terrible accident.
A few days later she got a text message from the same phone saying “Dirty, dirty rotten bitch, I heard you broke your neck, too bad you don’t come back in a body bag.”
Hughes’s attorney, Peter Nolan said his client accepted that the texts were despicable.
However, he said it was Ms. Doherty who sent Hughes the first text message in 2008 expressing joy over the breakdown of their marriage.
He also said that Ms. Doherty owed her client money after she rented him a property, but did not pay the rent.
In sentencing, Judge Aylmer said he placed the charge in the middle range for such crimes and initially deserved a four-year sentence.
He initially reduced that sentence to one of three years due to an early guilty plea.
He said that due to Hughes’ age and the fact that he appeared in court with no prior convictions, he reduced the sentence to 12 months.
He said he had the option to stay the entire sentence, but he referred to the fact that Hughes showed no remorse and that he blamed a rental dispute and earlier text sent by Ms. Doherty on the failure of Hughes’ marriage.
While sentencing, Ms. Doherty, in a video link from a home in rural Spain, wept.
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