Home’s where the heart is for RTE travel chef Fulvio
Man given 91/2 years for ‘vicious, savage and cowardly attack’
Catherine & Laeila RTE chef Catherine Fulvio revealed while she enjoys working abroad she won’t be leaving home for good any time soon.
The mum of two said she “has the best of both worlds” with Tastes Like Home which took her to New Zealand and Oz this year but admitted working away from home can also be a constant juggle.
Catherine was speaking at the launch of the show, which returns on Monday for its third season thanks to Londis sponsorship.
She said: “That’s always a juggle because I run my own business and I have a fantastic team working with me but juggling can be a challenge.
“It’s difficult, you are managing your family, children, household and business and I find that probably the hardest to pull together.”
The Wicklow-born chef, who has written six cookbooks, said her schedule has prohibited her from writing another, but revealed she has just returned home from a top secret gig for the BBC.
She said: “It’s a fairly big thing, I’m presenting a show over there but it has been a big opportunity for me and I am grateful for it.
“I really enjoyed working in the UK. But I am happy at home and I love my little country you’d never catch me emigrating.” A MAN who who beat, stabbed and scalded his partner was jailed for nine-and-a-half years yesterday for the “vicious, savage and cowardly attack”.
Judge Tom O’donnell said gardai walked into a “bloodbath” when they arrived at the woman’s flat where the assault took place. He added: “There was blood everywhere.”
Colin Ryan, 30, from St Ita’s Street, St Mary’s Park, Limerick, pleaded guilty to intentionally or recklessly causing serious harm to Simone Lee on November 27, 2016.
The 39-year-old sustained a brain injury, broken nose, broken bones, burns to her face, neck, trunk and eyelids. And was stabbed in the back.
Due to the serious nature of her injuries, gardai initially believed Ms Lee was a victim of an acid attack. They now believe she was scalded with boiling water.
The victim also lost some of her hair and now wears a wig.
Gardai responding to a report of a serious disturbance at Ms Lee’s flat at Thomondgate found shards of glass on the road outside the property and a step protruding from a window at the upstairs flat.
Ryan, covered in blood, allowed them into the flat, telling them: “She’s playing dead upstairs.”
Furniture and two televisions were found smashed up inside the flat.
Judge O’donnell said: “Gardai discovered Ms Lee semi-naked and unconscious on the floor with burn marks and stab wounds on her back.”
She was taken to St James’s Hospital, Dublin, where she was put in an induced medical coma for three weeks.
Some of her neighbours said they heard loud noises coming from the flat “most of the day”.
One added it “sounded like a building being demolished”.
It was accepted both Ryan and Ms Lee appeared to be in a volatile relationship, which was fuelled by each other’s drug and alcohol addictions.
Blood found on his
Colin Ryan from Limerick clothes was matched to the victim and his fingerprints were in bloodstains inside the flat.
Initially, following his arrest, he denied any wrongdoing.
Ryan told gardai he found Ms Lee covered in blood after he called to her flat. He claimed she threw a step ladder at him hitting him on his arm, which then smashed through a window.
The defendant’s barrister Mark Nicholas described it as “a desperate case”.
Ryan had two previous District Court convictions for non-violent offences. The judge noted his guilty plea “is a public acknowledgment of his wrongdoing... and a trial was avoided. Defence submisladder
VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT
sions were presented to the judge which included a reference to “provocation”. He rejected this.
Judge O’donnell said: “I don’t often comment in the course of pleas of mitigation in which a reference was made to provocation.
“The court notes the submissions but the court must be cognisant of the nature and seriousness of the injuries.
“No human – let alone a defenseless woman – should be subjected to such a vicious and savage and cowardly attack as was meted out to the victim.”
Ryan was jailed for nine years and six months, with the last two suspended.
The court heard Ms Lee has successfully addressed her addiction issues.
In a victim impact statement, read to the court by prosecution counsel John O’sullivan she said Ryan was initially “kind and gentle”.
She added: “But, on the night, he just beat me and beat me and beat me some more. You didn’t see me as a human being. You beat me to within an inch of my life.
“All I can remember haunts me daily.”
You didn’t see me as a human being. All I remember is fear
SIMONE LEE
is fear, and it