Dad attacked daughter’s sex abuser in courtroom

A JUDGE has told a father that he ‘cannot take the law into your own hands’ after the man attacked his daughter’s sex abuser in a courtroom.

The man, who was ‘overcome with emotion’, was spared jail but had a conviction recorded, and he was fined €300 after admitting he assaulted Daniel Martin, 47, formerly of Old County Road, Crumlin.

Martin was bleeding and needed medical attention after being attacked as he faced his sentencing in the Central Criminal Court on January 29 last.

A jury had convicted Martin of abusing a teenage girl and showing pornography to another child.

The father of one of the complainants, who cannot be identified to protect his daughter’s right to anonymity, appeared before Judge Treasa Kelly at Dublin District Court. He pleaded guilty to attacking Martin.

In evidence, Garda Gary Kelly said that the father entered the court, approached the man ‘in the dock’ and began to strike him before being ‘escorted out’.

Martin, now a jailed sex offender, provided a victim impact statement in the prosecution against the distraught father, who did not have to give evidence, but it was not read out during proceedings.

Pleading for leniency, the man’s solicitor described the circumstances as unusual and said it had been a stressful time for his family, and he did not attend the Central Criminal Court trial throughout.

The court heard that the man acknowledged ‘he should not have taken the law into his own hands’ but had been ‘overcome with emotion and knows he should not have done it’.

Judge Kelly noted the mitigation plea but said it was ‘totally unacceptable behaviour’ and warned that the man that could not do that and ‘you cannot take the law into your own hands’.

She said it was very unnerving in court, and the victim’s statement showed that it had an impact on him as well. However, she held that a custodial sentence was not necessary. Instead, she imposed a fine that must be paid within four months and bound the father to the peace for a year.

Judge Paul Burns had described the scene of the courtroom attack as a ‘serious breach of security’, and Martin’s sentencing was delayed for a month before he was jailed for 12 years.

Martin was convicted following a trial last December of 11 counts of sexual abuse, including rape and sexual assault, and sexual exploitation against one girl on dates between 2019 and 2020. The girl was aged between 15 and 16 at the time. He was also found guilty of causing another teenage girl to watch pornography.