Star hurler Hayes given suspended sentence after nightclub attack
All-star walks free after judge insists a stretch in jail ‘would not benefit society’
No CCTV evidence of the assault
MULTIPLE All-Irelandwinning Limerick hurler Kyle Hayes has walked free from court after receiving suspended jail sentences following his convictions for violent disorder inside and outside a nightclub.
The 25-year-old GAA star attacked a young carpenter who sustained serious facial injuries during the incident in October 2019.
Immediately after the sentences were imposed, Mr Hayes’s barrister, Brian McInerney, shepherded him into a consultation room at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court, telling him: ‘The main thing is you are going home.’
Judge Dermot Sheehan said Limerick hurling manager John Kiely, who previously appeared before the court as a character witness for Hayes, had asked him to give the five-time All-Irelandwinner ‘a chance’ – and he was giving Hayes that chance.
‘An immediate custodial sentence would not benefit society,’ the judge said.
Hayes showed no emotion when Judge Sheehan told him to ‘stand up’ and hear the sentences. The judge said: ‘The violence shown by Kyle Hayes was signifcant and dangerous.’
Hayes, of Ballyashea, Kildimo, Co. Limerick, had denied two violent disorder charges, but he was convicted of the charges by a jury. The judge imposed a suspended two-year sentence for violent disorder Mentor: Hayes and John Kiely outside the Icon nightclub in Limerick city on the night in question and a concurrent 18-month suspended sentence for violent disorder inside the nightclub on the same date. Hayes was found not guilty by a jury, following his two-week trial last November, of a charge of assault causing harm to Cillian McCarthy. However, Judge Sheehan said ‘none of this would have happened if not for Kyle Hayes’. Mr McCarthy suffered trauma, underwent surgery for a fractured eye socket, and suffered loss of earnings due to the nature of his injuries. The judge directed Hayes to pay €10,000 in compensation to the victim. During the trial, two gardaí gave evidence that they saw Kyle Hayes kicking a male on the street but Judge Sheehan said this man appeared to have been another man and not Mr McCarthy.
Judge Sheehan said Mr McCarthy had been an innocent victim on the night.
Hayes ‘aggressively’ approached Mr McCarthy and his friend Craig Cosgrave inside Smyths Bar, beneath the nightclub, warning them to ‘stay the f*** away’ from two young women they were talking to at the bar, one of whom Mr Hayes believed had been seeing a friend of his, the judge said.
When Mr McCarthy told Hayes he was friends with the young women, Hayes invited him to fight, and asked him: ‘Do you know who the f*** I am?’
Judge Sheehan said Mr McCarthy and Mr Cosgrave walked away upstairs to the nightclub, but he said Hayes and another man approached them again ‘aggressively’ on the dancefloor and began punching Mr McCarthy.
Judge Sheehan said while the other man threw the first punch, Hayes was the ‘instigator’ of the violence and that ‘Kyle Hayes punched Cillian McCarthy continuously in the head’ during the violence on the dance floor.
After pursuing Mr McCarthy, who was bleeding from his head, outside the club, Hayes again ‘aggressively’ approached him and told him he would ‘dig the head off him’. The judge said that while gardaí were clear in their evidence that Kyle Hayes was involved in attacking a male who was lying on the street, this man was not Cillian McCarthy.
The judge said Hayes had to be ‘pulled away’ from the male by gardaí, and the hurler told one garda to ‘f*** off’ before he broke free of the garda’s grip and ran away. Hayes was arrested a few streets away and later charged.
The judge said the jury, in finding Hayes not guilty of the standalone charge of assaulting Mr McCarthy causing him harm, had ‘obviously taken into account’ that there was no CCTV evidence of the alleged assault outside the
Free to go home: Kyle Hayes at court yesterday nightclub, that gardaí had said Hayes was kicking a male who was not Mr McCarthy who was lying on the street, and that Mr McCarthy – who had given evidence that Hayes and others had ‘kicked’ and ‘stamped’ him on the ground – acknowledged there had also been another male in the vicinity of the street attack who looked very similar to Hayes.
The judge said he accepted Hayes had no previous convictions, was of good character, a good worker, had raised money for charities, and is a ‘successful sportsman’. However, he said he [could] ‘not ignore’ Hayes had ‘significant culpability’ in the violent events on the night.
The judge said there was no excuse for Hayes’s ‘manic response’ and ‘extraordinary attitude’ on the night.
Cillian McCarthy told the court previously that he had suffered psychologically and physically. He said: ‘I’m just looking forward to putting it behind me now.’
Afterwards, Hayes made no comment to waiting journalists.