Cork man sent 'I'm coming for you' text to victim within month of prison release

Irish Examiner

29-04-2025

A young Cork man who harassed and threatened to kill another teenager was jailed last year, but within a month of his release, he breached the court order by sending her texts, including one stating: 'I'm out now and I'm coming for you', it was alleged on Tuesday.
Detective Garda Pat Connery applied at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to re-enter the sentence whereby one year of the sentence had been suspended.
Now aged 20, Rory Lally of Wainsfort, Rochestown, Cork, was remanded in custody until May 20 by Judge Helen Boyle for her colleague Judge Sinead Behan to consider the application to activate the suspended portion of the sentence.
Judge Behan imposed the original sentence of two years, the second year being suspended on condition that he would not contact the victim directly or indirectly.
Det Garda Connery confirmed to prosecution barrister Emmet Boyle that Lally was released from prison on February 24 this year and in the period of just over two months he had allegedly breached the order by sending four messages.
The first was allegedly sent to the victim of the harassment at 10.45pm on March 29, stating: 'I am out now and I'm coming for you.'
The most recent was allegedly sent at 6.37pm on Sunday, April 27, after he attended the Cork Tipperary hurling match and drank some vodka. The text received by the victim's father, stated: 'I am around now. Get (victim's name) and sort this shit out for once and for all.'
Lally got into the witness box at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on Tuesday and told his barrister Elaine Audley that a generic tablet as part of his medication had caused difficulties and he stopped taking some medication.
He said: 'I know I shouldn't have done it. I will never ever, ever, ever, ever, do it again, I just want to get and do my Leaving Cert. I promise not be drinking.
I know what the concern is but I just want the chance to prove people wrong.'
Last year he pleaded guilty to harassment of the teenager when she was 17 and he was approximately a year older.
Det Garda Connery said the injured party started communicating with Rory Lally on social media in April 2023 and in June 2023 they met at a concert in Cork. However, she felt uncomfortable with him at the concert and soon afterwards told him by phone to stop calling her. She went on to block him on social media.
He ignored this and continued to contact her causing her such concern that she contacted gardaí in July 2023 and they contacted him and told him to desist. The messaging continued. She complained to gardaí again in October and they approached him once more and told him to stop contacting her.
To get around being blocked by her on social media, he set up new accounts and used other numbers.
By November 2023, Rory Lally was telling her he did not care if she contacted gardaí and that he would do life in prison. She contacted the guards again in December and he sent voice messages threatening to kill her.
Det Garda Connery went to the young man's home. He said:
I told him I was investigating the complaint against him. While I was in the house, he sent further threatening messages to her.
'He said he was obsessed with the injured party. He admitted sending her messages. He said he would not physically harm her. He had to be brought before a special sitting of Cork District Court on Christmas Eve.'
At the sentencing hearing, barrister Elaine Audley said the young man comes from a good family and he never came to Garda attention previously. She said that he had difficulties with communication early in his life but that it was not until secondary school that he became socially isolated and this was exacerbated at the age of 15/16 at the height of the pandemic.
Ms Audley said he had poor insight into how his behaviour would affect others and poor reading of social cues. The barrister said that the defendant accepted that the messages were nasty and inappropriate and that he needed to work through counselling on appreciating the effect of his behaviour on others.
Judge Behan noted from a victim impact report the devastating effect this had the young woman who was harassed and the fact that she had to have counselling because the experience was so disturbing.