By Paddy Clancy

A man consumed with conviction that there is a media conspiracy against an invention that could reduce road accidents has been ordered not to come within a two-mile radius of RTE, the Irish national broadcaster.

The court ban was imposed Monday after Paul Stokes gate crashed a live showing of the Late, Late Show and a week later rammed his car into the front door of the station as members of the audience were leaving the Ryan Tubridy Show.

Late, Late host Pat Kenny was about to interview members of the judging panel of a new talent-spotting show when viewers suddenly saw a man in brown leather jacket approach from Kenny’s right.

With his back to the cameras, and as the host and guests wondered if this was a surprise addition to the program, Stokes started berating Kenny and uttering foul-mouthed expressions about his predecessor on the show Gay Byrne, who is now chairman of the Road Safety Authority.

Stokes told Kenny he and Byrne were “a******s.” He also described Kenny as “a piece of s***.”

It later emerged that 52-year-old Stokes, whose mortified daughter Aoife is a researcher on the program, bluffed his way past security staff by saying he had an audience ticket to collect inside.

He then hid behind a screen before choosing his moment to confront Kenny. He was on screen for about 10 seconds before producers pulled the plug and switched to adverts.

When the show resumed three minutes later Kenny introduced the next item with the words “before we were interrupted.”

Stokes, RTE sources later revealed, had been bombarding the newsroom with phone calls and e-mails for several weeks in an attempt to get publicity for a device he claims could “stop all road accidents.”

The next incident happened last Saturday. Stokes drove his car right up against the main front entrance of the broadcasting station in Montrose, Dublin, as members of the audience at Ryan Tubridy’s show were leaving the studio. The door was smashed but nobody was injured.

Stokes was arrested and appeared in court Monday charged with criminal damage. He was remanded on bail of $1,400 until January and was told not to come within two miles of RTE in the interim.

He asked the judge if that also meant not passing the building on his way into Dublin city centre from the Monkstown suburb where he lives and she said it did.

Meanwhile, according to reports in Dublin, neither Stokes’ ex-wife nor his daughter are talking to him.