The second brother involved in a feud-related assault last month on a mother with a child in her arms, was jailed for nine months this week (Wednesday 9 ), much to the disapproval of the victim.
Raymond O’Neill (23 ) of 125, Meadowbrook, Willow Park, along with his brother Patrick, who was sent down for three months last week, attacked Stacey Ring outside her home in Thornbury Drive with a wooden bat around breakfast time on May 25, which resulted in Ms Ring receieving six stitches to a head wound. Her child, though dropped in the attack, was not seriously injured.
Last Wednesday after his brother was jailed, O’Neill was remanded in custody so that the court could view Ms Ring’s injury and decide whether his case could be dealt with in the District Court or sent for more serious sanction in the Circuit Court.
After seeing pictures of the wound from Detective Garda Padraig Hession, Judge Patrick Clyne suggested it had been inflicted by “a hell of a blow”, and he asked Ms Ring to take her hands out of her pockets and approach the bench so he could see the injury for himself.
Ms Ring showed him but when asked about the injury, began to talk about her child instead. Judge Clyne steered her back to the subject at hand.
“You know what you’re about. You’re able to put your hands back in your pockets. Will you live?” asked the judge.
Ms Ring said she would, but when she admitted to having taken the stitches out herself when Judge Clyne asked her when she went back to hospital, he decided then “to accept jursidiction” and deal with the case in the District Court.
After an application by Inspector Jarlath Folan for the State to have the case sent to the Circuit Court was turned down, Judge Clyne told O’Neill’s solicitor, Mark Cooney, the only mitigating factor was his client’s guilty plea.
When evidence of the defendant’s 27 previous convictions was read to court, it was revealed O’Neill had been jailed for 10 months in 2008 for causing damage to Ring’s mother’s house, and had also been jailed in 2006 for three years for another feud-related assault.
Judge Clyne jailed O’Neill for nine months and backdated this to May 26, the date of his guilty plea.
Moments later Ms Ring barged back into the court, and interrupted a subsequent case by shouting at the judge: “Why is he [O’Neill in the dock] winkin’ at me and why did you give that f***er only nine months?”
Judge Clyne calmly ignored Ring’s entreaties as gardai led her from the court.
