Charged with assault outside Gorey chipper

JUDGE CRITICAL OF BOTH DEFENDANT AND VICTIM

AN ALTERCATION outside a Gorey chipper in the early hours of the morning resulted in a charge of assault causing harm being brought against a young Camolin man.

Sean Byrne (21) of Clonee, Camolin, was charged with assault causing harm to Cathal Hayes outside Sorrento’s Chipper on Main Street, Gorey, on May 21 of last year.

Garda Aidan Clarke gave evidence that the injured party arrived at Gorey Garda Station at around 3 a.m. with ‘physical injuries to his face’ and covered in blood. CCTV footage was subsequently examined and the defendant, Sean Byrne was identified.

The injured party, 19 year-old Cathal Hayes, gave evidence that he had required surgery on his nose and couldn’t breath through his nose for six months. He also said it had had a profound impact on his life as he is studying sports science in college, but is no longer able to take part in contact sports on doctors orders. He also presented €2,300 in medical bills.

Solicitor Garrett Fitzpatrick said that his client ‘bitterly regrets’ what happened on the night. He said that altercation occurred when the injured party approached the car in which Byrne was a passenger and what was ‘initially banter’ got ‘out of hand’.

Despite a guilty plea from Byrne, Judge Staunton insisted on viewing CCTV footage himself.

‘I’m glad I’ve seen the CCTV footage,’ he said. ‘Had I not seen it, it would appear that this is a very clear cut case. However, Mr Fitzpatrick was correct in his assertion that there was a pair of them in it. Mr Byrne behaved disgracefully, as did Mr Hayes. I saw Mr Hayes push Mr Byrne backwards and the incident lasted a good few minutes. I think Mr Hayes was economical with the truth. To say that all the blame for this is on one side would be a flagrant misrepresentation of the facts.

‘The only difference is that Mr Hayes received the injuries.’

The Judge said that he still had to convict Byrne, but he opted to adjourn the case for 12 months. He proposed that if the defendant came to no garda attention, it would be dealt with by manner of a €750 and he also ordered Byrne to pay 50% of the medical fees incurred by Mr Hayes, totalling €1,150.