Former GAA star jailed over threat to kill taxi driver

Jailed alongside 27-year-old Robert Tasker at Newry Crown Court was Antoin McCooey (25) who was handed a six-year sentence.

Jailing the pair and ordering their sentences to be spent half in custody and half under licence, Judge Melody McReynolds told them the case was tainted by “bullying and bravado” against a “vulnerable” taxi driver.

Tasker, who was also facing sentencing for drugs offences in a separate case, was told by Judge McReynolds that despite defence submissions over his drug use, Tasker’s “major addiction problem is his own ego”.

At the end of their trial last April, Tasker and McCooey, with separate address on St Patrick’s Park, Cullyhanna, were each convicted of kidnapping, robbing, threatening to kill and assaulting Paul Kelly in November 2016.

Tasker separately pleaded guilty to possessing and supplying cocaine and cannabis.

Tasker was part of the Armagh side which won the All-Ireland minor football title in 2009 but only played a handful games for the senior team.

During the trial the jury heard evidence from the taxi driver who said he believed he was going to die after Tasker held a Stanley knife to his throat and threatened to kill him.

Mr Kelly had picked up the two men from a Chinese restaurant in Dundalk just after midnight on November 29, 2016 but when their chat became extremely sexualised, he said he was uncomfortable and the mood in the car palpably changed.

Tasker produced a Stanley knife and McCooey a screwdriver which he moved in a stabbing motion.

Mr Kelly said: “The man in the back kept saying he was going to rape me... he kept saying this all the time, the whole way nearly to Cullyhanna.”

“I kept thinking of my kids, it was close to Christmas and I thought they weren’t going to have their daddy for Christmas.”

Mr Kelly gave the pair his nights takings of 120 Euros but Tasker and McCooey continued to threaten him until he parked at the side of the road and they walked away.

Judge McReynolds said although was once a “talented footballer”, Tasker “has to come to terms with being past his best”.