“Get into a boxing ring with someone your own size,” said Judge John Neilan to the son of Mullingar’s poll-topping Labour councillor.
When he heard that Michael Dollard Jr, 15 Beechgrove, Mullingar had been kicking and punching while in a row with a woman on Castle Street on February 16 at 11.30pm, he suggested that the Midlands Prison was the place “for people like you”.
Inspector Kieran Keyes said the actions were not necessarily aimed at the woman but agreed with the judge’s interpretation that he was “gesticulating in a threatening fashion”.
Mr Dollard, who has a number of previous drink-driving convictions, is under the care of a psychiatric counsellor, Mr Redmond O’Regan told the court, but Judge Neilan was unimpressed.
“No matter what mental or psychiatric situation you’re in, the place for people like you is in the Midlands Prison.”
He told Mr Dollard that there “you can take on anyone you like”.
He added that the way men treat women is “absolutely appalling” and insisted that he would “vindicate the rights of everyone in this State, especially females”.
“Get into a boxing ring with someone your own size,” he said, telling Mr Dollard that “if you want to find yourself in the bowels of the Midlands Prison, I’ll arrange that for you”.
The judge said that only as recently as that morning as he was getting into his car, he had seen a young lady walking with a boy of three or four years. She was holding the phone away from her ear while a male shouted obscenities and used foul language.
He said he felt like telling the man a few expletives and to “take a flying jump”.
He “greatly regretted” that he had not called Gardaí when recently in Roscommon he saw a woman pushing a baby past a church while a man was “berating her in the most outrageous fashion”.
He didn’t contact Roscommon Gardaí because, he said, he thought they considered him to be “some kind of nuisance”, and he had hoped that perhaps someone else would take responsibility and report the incident.
The couple had just passed the Garda Station, he said.
Adjourning the case to November 12 without imposing any sentence or fine, he warned Mr Dollard that if he says “boo” he’d find himself in the Midlands Prison.
He was charged with public intoxication and threatening behaviour. His father, who has accompanied him to court appearances in the past, was not present.
