Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Man who shouted ‘Savile’ at sports day escapes jail
41yr-old back in court over slurs
A MAN has avoided jail for breaking a court order imposed for shouting “Jimmy Savile” and abuse about the Catholic Church during a school sports day.
Gary Mairs previously admitted three charges arising out of the incident in June last year.
He received an eight-month prison sentence suspended for two years, was placed on probation for a year and ordered to complete 80 hours of community service.
But the 41-year-old was back in Ballymena Magistrates Court this week to plead guilty to breaching the ruling which had required him to keep in touch with a probation officer.
On four dates in September and February this year he failed to make the required contact.
He was given a four-month term suspended for three years.
Mairs, of Carndale Meadows in the Co Antrim town, committed the original offences on June 1, 2016. He had claimed a drone being used to film the school event made him feel paranoid at his adjacent home.
A prosecutor told the previous hearing the incident at St Louis Grammar School, Ballymena, was “aggravated by hostility”. Mairs shouted abuse at staff during the sports day which included comments about paedophiles, perverts and Jimmy Savile, left.
At this week’s hearing, barrister Stephen Law said his client has struggled with alcohol and because of that was unable to do his community service.
He added Mairs has now “grasped the root of his offending”.
Deputy District Judge Peter Magill told the defendant: “Some people shouldn’t drink, some people cannot handle it.”
Mairs was also been banned from the road for three years and fined £200 after he was caught driving with excess alcohol just yards from Ballymena police station on July 7 this year.
He was also unlicensed and uninsured to drive the Audi.