A Ballinrobe man who failed to appear in court was given a two month sentence in Ballinrobe District Court for what Judge John Kilrean described as a very serious incident.
Patrick Edward Sweeney of Flat 2, Flannery’s Apartments, Bridge Street, Ballinrobe, was convicted and sentenced to two months in prison for smashing the window of a car.
Judge Kilrean was shown CCTV evidence of an incident that occurred on March 4 2008, which showed Sweeney and a group of men approach a car and look into its windows while it was parked in the car park of Cummins SuperValu, Ballinrobe. The video then showed a man who was wearing very similar clothes to Sweeney return to the car with a hood up covering his face a short while later and smash two rocks through the window of the car which was owned by Martin McDonagh.
Garda Damien Ryder told the court that at 11.45am that day he was approached by Mr McDonagh who asked him to go with him to see what had happened his car. Garda Ryder said he took a statement from Mr McDonagh and then got the CCTV footage from Cummins’s, SuperValu, and after viewing it he arrested Sweeney on March 29 and brought him to Castlebar Garda station where he was charged and he showed him the CCTV footage. When asked by Supt Padraig O’Toole whether he was in any doubt that it was Sweeney who was on the CCTV footage carrying out the damage, Garda Ryder told the court he was in no doubt as he had been approached by Sweeny earlier that day outside the court house in Ballinrobe. The court also heard from Garda John Newell who told the court that on March 16, 12 days after the incident, Sweeney came into the Garda station in Ballinrobe and reported that the jacket he was wearing that day had been lost or stolen that morning, but he didn’t know where. Judge Kileran convicted Sweeny in his absence and sentenced him to two months in prison.
