The issue of anti-social behaviour was the catalyst for a long debate at a meeting of the Castlebar Joint Policing Committee this week. The meeting was told of a number of incidents of this type of behaviour over the recent past, with one member of the public retelling the harrowing ordeal he is currently suffering at the hands of his neighbours and the lack of interest the landlord of the rented property has shown towards the issue. Castlebar Mayor Cllr Michael Kilcoyne also told the meeting of an incident he was made aware of early in the week. “I got a call from a relative and the carer of an elderly man about an incident at the weekend. The man, who lives on Linenhall Street, was outside at 1.30am last Saturday night on the street and three young fellas urinated on him. The gardaí know about this and are investigating it, but the poor man is traumatised after it and his carer and his relative who rang me are very concerned about him.” Cllr Ger Deere told the meeting, “This was a terrible act to carry out and I hope that those who carried it out were caught on camera on the street to help the gardaí investigate this properly.”
Cllr Kilcoyne then introduced Bernard King who lives in Newtown to the members of the committee to tell them about the situation in which he is currently living. “Since Christmas, when a mother and daughter moved into a house beside us, we’ve had to put up with constant noise and people coming and going 24 hours a day,” he said. “When I complained to the mother she was off her head and she abused me. The people who are coming visiting this house all the time, one of them tried to break into my house. There’s constant litter around all the time and one time they tried to clean it up by lighting a fire in a small enclosed yard. The landlord told me to ‘f off’ when I called him and he won’t answer my calls any more. We’ve even had to move from the back bedroom in the house to the front of the house to sleep at night time.”
Cllr Blackie Gavin complimented Mr King for coming forward and telling his story because it is a hard thing to do. “This type of behaviour from people is not on and it’s not on from landlords either to let it happen,” he said. Superintendent Willie Keaveney told the meeting, “We see this replicated across the town unfortunately, and it will continue until people become brave like Mr King and come forward and give evidence against people like this.”
