Punishment beating roundly condemned
September 1996
DUNDALK’S latest ‘punishment beatings’ bring swift condemnation from community and political sources.
A 21-year-old man is attacked by three masked men who enter a house in Ashling Park, Cox’s Demesne.
Two days later, a 30-year-old victim is in his family home at Glenmore Park, Muirhevnamor, when two masked men, carrying an iron bar and hatchet, beat him up.
Both men receive treatment for their injuries in the Louth county hospital.
The incidents follow on from similar attacks on two men in Muirhevnamor earlier this month. Investigating gardai appeal for information. Community workers in Cox’s Demesne say they are horrified and shocked at the beating in their area.
A statement reads: ‘We condemn the barbaric nature of this type of attack.
‘It was a terrible violation of a family – they came into a family home, where there was a mother and her children held at gunpoint by hooded animals (maybe this is an insult to the animal kingdom).
‘ They beat her son with a sledge hammer and a piece of wood with nails in it.
‘ The mother had to listen to her son screaming, while she and younger members of the family were held at gunpoint.’
The community workers add three other young men have had to leave the area because of threats related to the same incident.
Dermot Ahern TD reveals that he has been contacted by one of the victims of the beatings.
‘ This person is adamant that he was unfortu- nate to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, that he is not engaged in any criminal activity, nor has he done anything which would have warranted such a beating, even in the warped minds of those who carried it out.’
The Fianna Fail chief whip adds the victim and his family are astounded that there is no avenue open to him to obtain recompense for the very severe injuries criminally inflicted on him.
Mr Ahern says he will be calling on the Minister for Justice to examine the situation to see if any amendment to the Criminal Injuries Scheme can be made to cover victims of such attacks.