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Dublin man on the run from prison for 22 years is given additional jail term

He was charged with being unlawfully at large from HMP Magilligan between January 2, 2001, and January 11, 2023.

Today at 07:41

Ireland’s longest on-the-run prisoner, finally caught after 22 years, has been handed an additional eight-month prison sentence.

Edward James John Hickey was jailed at Antrim Crown Court.

Judge Alistair Devlin said his “excessively long absence must render this case much more serious than it otherwise would have been”.

He ordered that it will be served consecutively to the sentence that the 49-year-old began at the start of the century.

Judge Devlin said that, while the case was exceptional, given the length of absence and that Hickey had effectively “turned his life around”, there had to be a punishment as he had breached the trust placed in him by the prison service.

“Temporary home leave at Christmas, or at any other time, rests on an essential element of mutual trust,” said Judge Devlin. “Unfortunately you abused that trust… and there has to be adverse consequences for anyone who might be tempted to do what you did.”

He was charged with being unlawfully at large from HMP Magilligan between January 2, 2001, and January 11, 2023.

Last month, Hickey, from Monasterboice Road, Dublin, entered a guilty plea to the single charge against him: between January 2, 2001, and January 11, 2023, having been ordered to serve a jail sentence at HMP Magilligan, “[you] were afterwards, and before the expiration of the term for which you were so sentenced, at large without lawful excuse”.

In December 2000, Hickey was jailed for five years at Belfast Crown Court for having a firearm and ammunition with intent to endanger life.

During sentencing remarks on Thursday, the judge said Hickey had been granted temporary home leave for the Christmas period and was due to return on January 2, 2001, but did not.

Hickey was not arrested until January this year, when police on the Welsh island of Anglesey alerted the PSNI that a passenger by the name of Edward Hickey was due to arrive on a ferry from Dublin.

He was duly arrested and flown back to Belfast, where he made full admissions, claiming that he had intended to return to prison but, having been told that his mother was seriously ill, he instead opted to stay with her in Dublin.

Judge Alistair Devlin said, while it was to Hickey’s credit that he had essentially stayed out of trouble the entire time since — starting a family and working as a forklift driver to provide for them — it was also a factor that he did not, “following a period of mature reflection”, decide to hand himself in, even after the unfortunate passing of his mother.

The judge said the offence was different from that of escaping from lawful custody, an offence which carries a maximum of life imprisonment, and he accepted Hickey’s decision not to go back to HMP Magilligan “was impulsive rather than planned”.

Imposing the eight-month sentence, Judge Devlin ordered that it would only begin when Hickey has finished serving the jail sentence originally imposed two decades ago.