Team boss and horse trainer join in appeal for star hurler Kyle Hayes to be spared jail
Character references vouch for five-time All-Ireland final winner
THE manager of the Limerick senior hurling team asked a judge yesterday not to jail Kyle Hayes following the star hurler’s conviction for violent disorder at a nightclub six years ago.
John Kiely, who is also a school teacher, pleaded with Judge Dermot Sheehan to give four-time All-Star Hayes ‘a second chance’.
‘Every young man deserves a second chance,’ he said.
However, Mr Kiely – who will hope Hayes will be available for selection when Limerick chases its fifth successive All-Ireland title later this year – acknowledged that the hurler had ‘let down’ his family, team-mates and loyal young fans ‘who look up to him’.
Hayes, 25, who won the last five out of six All-Ireland championships with Limerick, had pleaded not guilty to one count of assault causing harm to self-employed carpenter Cillian McCarthy outside the Icon nightclub on October 28, 2019, as well as two counts of violent disorder, inside and outside the Limerick club, on the same night.
Following a two-week trial at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court last December, a jury found Hayes not guilty of assaulting Mr McCarthy, 24, but guilty of both violent disorder offences.
Character references outlining Hayes’s charity work, plus his visits to schools and hospitals, were also provided to the court, including from high-profile horse trainer Jim Bolger, as well as the managing director of the Kirby Engineering Group, where Hayes works, and others across the health and education sector. In a written testimonial, Mr Bolger said Hayes had come to Carlow and helped raise more than €150,000 as part of a cancer drive and that he had always found him to be reliable.
The trial heard that Hayes told gardaí he could not recall ‘aggressively’ approaching Mr McCarthy in Smyths Bar on the night and telling him to ‘stay the f*** away’ from two young women he was chatting to in the bar, as alleged by the State.
John O’Sullivan, prosecuting, said that when Mr McCarthy tried to explain to Hayes that he was friends with the two females, Hayes got in his face and shouted: ‘Do you know who the f*** I am... I’m getting sick of you, I’m going to dig the head off you.’
Mr McCarthy said Hayes and others approached him later on the dancefloor of the Icon nightclub, located above the bar, and rained down punches on his head and face while his hands were held behind his head so he could not defend himself.
Hayes denied allegations by Mr McCarthy that he ‘kicked, stamped and punched’ him while he lay on the ground after a mob including the hurler chased him outside of the club.
Mr O’Sullivan said it was clear from CCTV footage on the night that Hayes got involved in ‘gratuitous and unprovoked violence on the streets of Limerick’.
Addressing Judge Sheehan, who indicated he is considering a custodial sentence, Limerick hurling manager Mr Kiely said: ‘I respectfully ask you, judge, to give him (Hayes) a second chance.”
Mr Kiely said he was ‘not in the slightest’ condoning what Hayes did on the night.He also said he
‘Fear I would meet these people again’
had viewed the CCTV footage of the dancefloor violence and described Hayes’s behaviour as ‘very disappointing’.
However, Mr Kiely told the court: ‘He (Hayes) is somebody I trust, he has a very strong work ethic, he’s a strong leader, he puts his team first and himself last, he is someone I could rely on.’
The Limerick boss said Hayes had already, ‘paid a heavy price’ because of the media coverage of the court case, and that he believed the hurler had ‘taken responsibility for his actions’.
Mr Kiely agreed under questioning by Mr O’Sullivan that he had not attended the trial last December, in which Hayes denied all charges or having encountered Mr McCarthy on the night.
Hayes’s barrister, Brian McInerney, said his client accepted the jury’s verdicts and reiterated the hurler had been acquitted of assault, a charge he had always denied. In his victim impact statement to the court, Mr McCarthy said he had been ‘easygoing, hardworking, enjoying life’, but after the incident, ‘all this changed’.
He said he was left ‘terrified’ by the dancefloor attack and that he was escorted outside the club by bouncers nursing a ‘pounding’ head and swollen eye.
He said he felt ‘alone and afraid’ when set upon a second time outside the club by a group of males.
He said he suffers persistent and severe headaches, blurred vision and underwent surgery for a fractured bone to his right eye.
‘My biggest fear has been returning to socialising in Limerick again for fear I would meet these people again,’ he said.
Hayes, who faces a maximum of ten years in prison and/or a fine, or both, was remanded on bail for sentencing on March 20.