Carlow man was sending offensive messages to his godmother
Carlow Courthouse
A SLEW of offensive and threatening messages sent to his godmother over the course of one morning has led to a conviction for harassment for a Carlow man.
Jonathan Cooke, 7 Riverdell Apartments, Haymarket, Carlow was charged with harassment after sending 26 voice messages to his godmother over the course of one day last year. Mr Cooke pleaded not guilty to the offence before Judge Geraldine Carthy at Carlow District Court on Thursday 12 March.
Recordings of the voice messages were played to the courtroom. In them, Mr Cooke (30) could be heard saying “you rat bastard” repeatedly and “I don’t even want to look at you again, you ugly c**t”.
The court heard Mr Cooke ranting and raving in the messages, accusing the complainant of being a “busybody”, saying “you had to get involved, as always” and shouting that her family were “scum”.
“Who do you think you are? You’re not my family,” he said.
In one of the more humorous messages, the defendant sang his insults. In one of the darker ones, he said of the complainant’s brother: “I would have ended his life.”
Judge Carthy heard that the harassment began in the early hours of 17 February 2025 when the complainant received a WhatsApp message on her phone, addressed to her daughter, looking for a phone number for his godmother. She responded at around 9am in the morning, identifying herself and asking him what he wanted.
“Then he bombarded me with messages that I wasn’t happy with,” she told Judge Carthy. “They were threatening me and my family. At one stage he threatened to kill my brother,” she said.
“I felt very upset.”
The complainant explained that his contact came up under another name, but that he identified himself as Jonathan in the first message and that she recognised his voice: “I’ve known him for as long as he’s alive – he’s my godson.”
In fear for her safety, she went to Bagenalstown Garda Station with her brother to report the incident. After making a statement, she forwarded the messages to Garda Brian Wilkinson, who said in his evidence that their content “can only be described as abusive in nature”.
In total, she received 35 messages, but four were shorter than a few seconds and contained no audio. The last message was sent around midday.
Solicitor Alexander Rafter, representing Mr Cooke, put it to Garda Wilkinson that “it’s my client’s case that he received voice notes in return and that you haven’t been presented with that”. He brandished a letter from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions which noted it would not be appropriate to proceed with a harassment charge if messages were sent in return.
Garda Wilkinson said the complainant presented him with the voice notes shortly after she received the last message and said the defendant was arrested on the day of the incident, questioned about the correspondence and could not produce messages from his godmother in return on that day.
However, he agreed that it was on the state to produce evidence rather than the defendant.
“There’s an unfairness here. A one-sided version of events has been put before the court. My client instructs there are responses to those messages, but we don’t have those,” said Mr Rafter.
He referred to a Supreme Court decision from 2009 which said the prosecution has a duty to seek out all telephone records.
“But he did – your client couldn’t produce it,” responded Judge Carthy. “That case is from prior to the 2023 legislation, which absolutely reduces the threshold for harassment,” she observed.
As to why Mr Cooke couldn’t produce the messages he received that had been deleted and why he didn’t go back to the gardaí with his phone, Mr Rafter said: “Well, a phone could be lost.”
Judge Carthy did not accept this defence.
Mr Cooke then took to the stand and explained he sent the voice notes after he was kicked out of the house, the family tried to take his dog from him and “I went mental and lost me head”. He said his godmother had sent messages in response, egging him on.
Judge Carthy convicted Mr Cooke of the offence of harassment under section 10 of the .
“Obviously, what I heard today is quite distressing and stark in its content, but I’ll give your client every opportunity,” she told Mr Rafter.
She requested a probation report be compiled to get a full picture prior to sentencing Mr Cooke and remanded him on bail until a hearing on 20 May.
