A man and a woman charged with an assault using teeth and a wheel brace will have to attend their next court dates separately when it was revealed he has a suspended sentence to be dealt with in the Circuit Court first.
Before Judge Patrick McMahon were Louise Courtney (35 ) of Battery Heights, and Phillip Horan (22 ) from 9, St Mel’s Terrace, who were charged with the assault on an unnamed male on Connaught Street on January 25.
Inspector Nicholas Farrell for the State told the court how Courtney and Horan were in dispute with a male and that she allegedly“bit him on the back of the neck” while he “hit the victim with a wheel brace”.
Though the judge was told the victim needed a number of staples to close the wound, he didn’t feel the assault was serious enough to be sent to a trial by judge and jury and accepted jurisdiction in the lower District Court.
Judge McMahon remanded Courtney on continuing bail until October 10 for a “plea or [trial] date” after defence solicitor Padraig Quinn told him he was “still awaiting statements” from Gardai on the case.
He accepted Horan’s plea of guilty, but remanded him to Mullingar Circuit Court, sitting in Tullamore, on November 30, after being told the defendant had an unspecified suspended sentence hanging over him from Athlone Circuit Court which would have to be attended to before Horan could be sentenced for this assault.
