Colin Joyce threatened to release confidential information about 1,300 patients and have their details posted on Wikipedia. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

A Cork medical school dropout who sent threatening letters to 10 of his past supervisors and tutors at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) has been given a three-year suspended sentence.

Colin Joyce (34) was angry that the college had refused him readmission to allow him to complete his medical degree after he had attempted, over the course of four years, to complete his fourth year.

He ultimately chose to leave in 2007 due to mental health difficulties.

In 2012, Joyce started to contact a number of doctors, professors and staff by letter and threatened the recipients he would release confidential information regarding 1,300 patients and have their details posted on the Wikipedia website.

Joyce included personal information about the doctors in each letter. He told one he was sorry to hear her sister had died recently of ovarian cancer and he had information about another mans wife and children, which the man found alarming.

He wrote that he felt there was a conspiracy against him and said he was working with others abroad so even if he were to be locked up the information would still be released.

Joyce at times demanded amounts of cash while other letters insisted on his readmittance into the college and regularly threatened to release this confidential information.

He said he knew heavy individuals around Dublin and had a friendship with the Taliban and that he would get local paramilitaries to put together a bomb.

He claimed he had the power to bring about the closure of the RCSI.

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Medical school dropout sentenced for sending tutors threatening letters