A Mullingar man has had his prison sentence extended by three months after he pleaded guilty to assaulting a man in his 60s by throwing stones at him.
Stephen Myers (19 ) of Abbeylands, Mullingar was due to be released from prison on September 15 but his three month sentence for assault causing harm will now begin on that day.
Judge Hughes said Myers could have struck the man on the temple and inflicted a serious injury.
The victim, who was walking home near Spoutwell Lane at around 7.45pm on November 24 last, had seen a group of youth, and spoke to them about their behaviour.
When Myers joined the group at least one stone was thrown, and the man had to take off his glasses.
Myers threw another stone and it hit the man in the eye but when gardaí arrived, Myers denied it.
The man was injured on his eye and ear, received some bruising, and had double vision, but fortunately suffered no permanent damage, a medical report showed.
He was first treated in Mullingar and then sent to the Eye and Ear hospital in Dublin.
Myers told the court he didn’t know why he had done it, that he was very drunk at the time. Others were also throwing stones, he said.
He also pleaded guilty to his part in an incident at the Mullingar hospital’s A&E department shortly after midnight on January 21 this year.
A drunken Myers was with two other people there, and while he had no injuries and needed no treatment, he was loud and a nuisance at a busy time.
He was directed by a garda to leave the area, but stood up to the officer and called him a “faggott”.
Myers was also involved in a public order disturbance involving 20 people outside a pub in Mullingar last July, when he tried to push past a garda to attack a man he was verbally abusing.
Of his 21 previous convictions, there are public order, criminal damage and other offences.
Solicitor Patricia Cronin agreed that her client was lucky that the older man he stoned did not suffer more serious injuries.
But she said he’s dealing with his alcohol difficulties and is attending AA meetings in prison.
Judge Hughes imposed one month concurrent sentences for the public order incidents at the hospital and on the street.
But he imposed a three month consecutive sentence for “the assault on a 63-year-old man going about his business”.
The judge did however note that Myers looks better since he has begun dealing with his alcohol problems, and Myers himself said the judge had done him a favour in some ways.
