A former Sinn Féin councillor and his father have been jailed for falsely imprisoning and threatening to kill a convicted fraudster.

Jonathan and Patrick Dowdall tied the man to a chair and tortured him for two hours in the garage of their home on the Navan Road in Dublin.

Jonathan Dowdall invited Alex Hurley to his home for dinner on January 15th 2015. He had been at the house three days earlier to look at a motorbike.

Unbeknown to him, Jonathan believed Mr Hurley was trying to fraudulently use his bank details.

When they arrived at the house, his father Patrick pushed him into the garage. They tied him to a chair and threatened to chop him up and feed him to the dogs.

Jonathan Dowdall could be seen waterboarding Mr Hurley on video footage found on a USB stick recovered from his home.

He claimed he was the head of the IRA and threatened to kill his parents.

The degrading and humiliating manner in which they tortured him, the terror inflicted on their victim and the prolonged nature of the attack were considered as aggravating factors by the court.

Jonathan Dowdall was today jailed for 12 years. His father Patrick was sentenced to eight.