A 21-year-old man who had a bench warrant executed against him for failure to appear for sentencing in Castlebar Court in September was given a six month jail sentence this week in relation to incidents which happened last year and also for a public order incident which occurred in July of this year.
Tomaz Prazmouski, 18 The Grove, Castlebar, who showed up for Wednesday’s sitting of Castlebar District Court was arrested by Garda John Gallagher before court on discovering that a bench warrant was in existence.
Garda John Gallagher gave evidence for the most recent charge. Gda Gallagher told the court that on June 13 this year at 1.08am on Linenhall Street the defendant, when seeing the gardaí, approaching “took off running”.
When the gardaí followed and stopped Prazmouski, who was intoxicated, he began spitting on the ground in front of them. The defendant, while being directed to go home, shouldered a member of the public who walked past him and shouted after him that he would “f***ing get him next week”.
Acting solicitor for the defendant, Aidan Crowley, said that the defendant was intoxicated with something that night and this along with the previous charges in July and October last year are all alcohol related. Mr Crowley said that the defendant failed to appear in court for sentencing in September as he believed he was due before court on a different date in September.
Evidence for the previous charges were heard in March. These were that on October 12 last year in Hoban’s car park the defendant was in possession of a knife while intoxicated, resisted arrest and told a garda that his brother would kill him. Judge Mary Devins had ordered that the defendant should stay out of trouble until his sentencing.
On Wednesday, Mr Crowley said that the Polish man who has been in Ireland since he was 17 and is currently unemployed, has a serious drink problem and rather than a custodial sentence it would be of benefit to the defendant to address his drinking problem.
Judge Mary Devins said she was “afraid not” as he was given the opportunity when he was asked to stay out of trouble and now must “face the consequences of his actions.”
Judge Devins said that she somewhat naively believed his defence before when he appeared before her in March but that this had now changed.
For the previous charges in Hoban’s car park the defendant was convicted and fined €300 and sentenced to three months in prison along with another €300 and three months in prison concurrent. Section four was taken into consideration.
For the charges relating to July this year the defendant was convicted and fined €500 in relation to section six and sentenced to three months in prison consecutive. Section four public order was taken into consideration and recognisances were fixed.
