Bray man was ‘out of his head’ during burglary Annual charity sale day in Kilcoole
THREE-YEAR TERM FOR INCIDENT IN WHICH MAN AND DAUGHTER HURT
Judge Nolan said the sentence would have been longer if it were not for the particular circumstances of O’Brien’s acquired brain injury.
Garda Paul Hughes told John Quirke BL, prosecuting, that gardaí were alerted at 2 a.m. that two males had been attempting to enter a home.
Gda Hughes was met by two distressed women at the scene, a 70-year-old woman and her 40-year-old daughter. The daughter had cuts to her arm and a bloody nose. She told him her father was restraining a male in the bathroom.
Gda Hughes said there was broken glass, pots and furniture around the house. He found the elderly man in the bathroom holding an abusive male on the floor of the bathroom.
The daughter told Gda Hughes that she had been awoken earlier that night by her mother screaming downstairs and came out of her bedroom to see a male in a grey, hooded top. She screamed and shouted at him to get out of the house.
She struggled back down the stairs with the male and her father came out of his room to help her.
Downstairs, the male ran to the dining room where the struggle continued, with household items getting broken. A second male began kicking at the front door in an effort to get in.
The father managed to restrain O’Brien, who was shouting ‘I will get you’. Gardaí who had been alerted by the elderly women were nearby and arrived quickly on the scene.
The 74-year-old man suffered bruising and cuts to his body, while his daughter described herself as feeling ‘battered’ the following day. She said she felt anxious and vulnerable following the burglary, as well as paranoid about safety in the home.
‘I felt the need to scrub every inch of the house, I just wanted him out of the house, in a sense, by cleaning,’ the 40-year-old woman said in her victim impact statement.
The court heard there was €3,000 worth of damage done to the house.
O’Brien told gardaí he couldn’t remember anything about the events. He said he had been ‘out of his head’ on Sambuca and tablets. He said he had not gone into the house to hurt the occupants.
Gda Hughes agreed with Ronan Prendergast BL, defending, that it was not a ‘targeted burglary’ and the occupants were not known to O’Brien. He agreed that when the state of the occupants of the house was put to O’Brien he could not believe he could have done it.
Mr Prendergast said as a 16-year-old O’Brien had suffered a brain injury after being hit from behind with a hammer. He handed in a number of reports to Judge Nolan and outlined O’Brien’s treatment at the National Rehabilitation Centre and the ongoing care he required.
He said O’Brien, a father of one, had difficulties with tablet misuse and had made attempts to attend addiction counsellors. He said O’Brien was remorseful and had conveyed an apology to the victims. SYLVIA Scanlon is holding her annual charity sale day on Saturday, March 24, in Byrnes Pub in Kilcoole from noon to 5 p.m.
Proceeds will go towards buying Easter eggs for the patients of Newcastle Hospital. Any further money raised will be split between the Samaritans, Kilcoole mother and toddler group and Greystones resource centre, and Greystones Cancer Support.
There will be tables selling arts and crafts, and bric a brac. First prize in the draw is a weekend away in Trident holiday home and there will be 60 prizes on offer. The Easter bonnet competition will be judged at 2 p.m., with separate adult and child categories. There will be tea, coffee and homemade cakes for sale, guess the weight of the box, guess the weight of Vera’s Easter cake, guess how many sweets in the jar and lots more.
Last year, Sylvia raised a total of €1,977.22 and bought 60 eggs for Newcastle Hospital. Leftover prizes were donated to the Bingo Club, the Old Folks, and Open Door.