Two local teenagers will remain in jail after their appeal against a 10 month sentence for their part in a feud-related assault on a neighbour’s home with stones and petrol bombs failed in the Circuit Court this week (December 9 ).
The court was to hear how the three year feud had made parts of Athlone “a no-go area”.
The co-defendants, Stephen O’Reilly (19 ), of 85, Thornbury Drive, Willow Park and James Ring (19 ), of 16, Thornbury Drive were originally convicted on October 1, principally on the eye-witness testimony of three of the family members from the house they attacked on January 29, and were hoping to introduce alibi defences to refute this.
In court on Tuesday, Raymond and Elizabeth O’Neill returned to repeat their evidence against the defendants and told how all their downstairs windows were broken just before six on the morning in question.
They also gave evidence that a petrol bomb was used in the vicinity though neither could say who threw it.
“I’m 110 per cent sure Stephen O’Reilly and James Ring broke my windows,” said Raymond O’Neill. “I was as far away from them as I am from you,” he said to the judge beside him.
In cross-examination, he admitted involvement in the feud which he said had been going on for three years. He also admitted a sister of Ring’s “may be a possible future witness” in a case being taken against O’Neill in Mullingar Circuit Court in the new year.
His wife Elizabeth also identified the two defendants and claimed this had been the 11th attack on their house. “They have me terrorised,” she said. “I know them lads very well. Looking at them is like looking at Podge and Rodge on the telly.”
Garda John Nee told the court when he arrived on the scene, the end of the petrol bomb was still burning on the road beside the house and there was a “strong smell of petrol”.
Detective Tom Higgins gave evidence that when he arrested the pair under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act “there was no alibi offered at charge”.
“The first I heard of it was today,” he said. He confirmed that, in his view, the feud was “tit for tat” and that it had made parts of Willow Park “a no-go area”. O’Reilly then testified on the night in question he had stayed at Albie Marsh’s house where he claimed: “We watched DVDs and smoked joints”.
“I was stoned out of my head and couldn’t move from the chair,” he said.
When asked what time he got up in the morning he couldn’t say because he was “pancaked”.
However, his evidence could not be corroborated because Marsh - who was also due to appear on separate matters - had not shown up in court.
“Had he a pressing engagement?” asked Peter D Jones for the State.
“He expected a sentence this morning but he wants to be out for Christmas so he done a runner,” said O’Reilly.
He claimed Raymond O’Neill was making up his evidence because of the feud. Judge Anthony Kennedy fixed it in a simplicity.
“If Mr O’Neill is going to swear falsely against you, why doesn’t he go the whole hog and say he saw you with the petrol bomb?” asked the judge.
“I don’t know,” said O’Reilly.
Ring also denied all involvement in the incident and used his parents for an alibi. However, Peter D Jones was quick to point out that this was the first time his mother had done so in these matters.
“You didn’t give evidence in the District Court, why?” he asked.
“I wasn’t asked,” said Mrs Joan Ring.
“Who should ask you to tell the truth?”
“The solicitor,” she said.
“If you’re holding the truth on your son in your hand you’ll do anything you can for him,” he said.
Judge Kennedy found for the State and dismissed the appeals.
Allied to a number of unrelated motoring offences, this will see Ring serve 16 months and O’Reilly 14. At their original trial they were also respectively banned from driving for 10 years and 20 years.
“The feud has settled down since they’ve been remanded in custody. That’s the height of it,” said Garda Nee.
