“Do you know you I am? I will have your job,” screamed a champagne guzzling barman whose snobby and shocking abuse of a garda on New Year’s Day last ended in his being brought before Galway District Court and fined €700.
Nathan Colley (29 ) with an address at Lisroyne, Strokestown, Roscommon, pleaded guilty last Monday to being intoxicated in a public place, use of threatening and abusive behaviour, and failure to obey Garda James O’Brien when directed to leave the vicinity at Eyre Square on January 1, 2009.
Inspector Pat McHugh told the court that at 2am the defendant had been walking with a woman and was drinking out of a bottle of champagne. When approached by Garda O’Brien, Colley said: “F**k you, you f**king w**ker. I hope you like your job. Do you know who I am? I will have your job”.
The defendant, representing himself, said that he worked as a barman in the city and that he had been walking home with his girlfriend after New Year’s Eve celebrations. Colley said that he had had “too much to drink” and that the bottle had been given to him by his boss.
“I’m sure your boss didn’t envisage you drinking it down the street. It seems you were your own best customer that night. It’s outrageous what you said. If you moved on and kept quiet given the night that was in it I’m sure the garda would have let you go. Instead you threatened him,” said unimpressed Judge Mary Fahy.
Colley replied that although he accepts that he abused the garda he didn’t feel that he had threatened him.
Judge Fahy warned him that people who have a record can been sentenced for charges like these. She then fined him a total of €700 with three months to pay.
