‘I DON’T REGRET GRAVE DIGS’

Darren Kyle lost plot after brother Gerard’s image was hacked off tombstone in ‘disgusting’ attack

A GRIEVING brother who battered a man who desecrated his deceased sibling’s grave told us: “Any man wouldn’t let that go.”

Darren Kyle (33), from Ballymote, Co. Sligo, was given a suspended sentence last week for assault causing harm to John Drury – an assault he dished out after Drury confessed to a shocking attack on the grave of his deceased brother Gerard.

Drury received a broken leg during the savage assault, along with broken ribs and facial injuries.

But Judge Kenneth Connolly decided against imposing a custodial sentence after he described the desecration of Darren’s brother grave as ‘despicable’.

Speaking this week, Darren told the Sunday World that he carried out on the assault on Drury because he needed to be taught a lesson.

“I was branded a thug and a scumbag for what I done to him by a lot of people in Ballymote,” he said, “but I think what he did was 200 times worse.

“He hacked the picture of my brother off his gravestone … “That’s a disgusting thing to do. “I was very close to my brother and I’m godfather to his son.

“And he did what he did two days before my brother’s birthday. We found the grave like that on Gerard’s birthday.

“It was a disgusting horrible thing that he did.

“And he did it because he was jealous of my dead brother.

“He was going out with my dead brother’s girlfriend and when that wasn’t going well for him, he blamed it on my brother.

Darren said he held in his anger over the assault for as long as he could.

TAUNTED

“I held it in for a good while,” he said. “But he taunted me on the night it happened.

“They said in the court that he had apologised, but they didn’t mention he had called me a coward and said I was nothing like my brother before that.

“So, I didn’t believe his apology was genuine – no, I didn’t. It was bullsh*t.

“He said he was sorry for what he done to the grave, that it was sacrilege or something like that.

“And that’s when I rang him and I lost my shit.

“I said meet me up at Townpark and then what happened happened. Maybe he thought he was going to say sorry and that would be it.

“But that was never going to happen. No apology was ever going to fix that.

“Any man wouldn’t have let that go.

GUARDS

Asked whether he had intended to seriously injure Drury in the assault, Darren said: “Honestly, it could have been a lot worse.

“But yeah, yes I did.

“I wanted to teach him a lesson and make him realise that he should never have done something like that to someone’s grave – it’s disgusting.

“I didn’t know he got done by the Guards for it until after I did that to him.

“If I’d known that, it would have made a little bit of a difference but, eventually, I would have done something.

“After the court case got reported on, I read through a lot of the comments and I think everyone bar one person was on my side.

“One of the comments was that I should be given a life-time supply of jambons.

“But it’s over with now, I’ve moved on and that’s that.”

On Friday, we knocked on the door of John Drury in Ballymote to ask why he had committed such an outrageous act on a grave.

In declining to explain himself, he told us: “I’d rather not speak about it, it’s over and done with – I just want to leave it at that.”

Asked whether his injuries had healed, he said they had before closing his front door.

Judge Kenneth Connolly heard that the assault had taken place at around 11pm on April 17, 2021.

Mr Drury received a broken leg in the incident along with broken ribs and facial injuries which the court heard may have been life threatening had they progressed.

Darren Kyle, who had a previous conviction for assault causing harm and another for affray, had pleaded guilty at an earlier sitting last October to assaulting Mr Drury.

BREAK-UP

Outlining the case, Mr Leo Mulrooney BL (prosecuting) with Ms Elisa McHugh, State Solicitor, told how Mr Drury had been in a relationship with a woman who previously had been involved with Darren Kyle’s older brother Gerard for a number of years.

Gerard and the woman had a child together – Darren Kyle’s nephew.

There was an acrimonious break-up of the relationship between Mr Drury and the woman

with subsequent court hearings as a result and certain orders made against him.

Mr Drury then went on to desecrate the grave of Gerard Kyle.

Mr Drury was at home with a housemate on the night of April 17, 2021, and he stated that he had been drinking but that he was not drunk.

He decided to text Darren Kyle, asking him about a bicycle he had lent him some time ago.

Kyle replied that the bike had been broken in half and not to text him again.

Mr Drury texted that he was sorry for desecrating the grave of his brother and that this had been a sacrilegious thing to do.

Investigating Garda Thomas Murray told Mr Mulrooney that he believed Mr Drury was genuine in his apology.

‘One comment said I should be given a lifetime supply of jambons’

Mr Mulrooney said that following the exchange of texts, a phone-call was made between the two men which lasted for 13 seconds.

Darren Kyle told Mr Drury to come down to the park and they subsequently met up there.

Kyle arrived with another person. Mr Drury attempted to apologise but he was struck with a punch to the face which knocked him to the ground.

Kyle and the other man then proceeded to punch, kick and stamp on Mr Drury who said he felt he had been concussed.

FRACTURED

A medical report was read to the court from the Accident and Emergency Department of Sligo University Hospital.

It outlined how Mr Drury had sustained fractured ribs, a broken leg with multiple head and facial injuries. He underwent an operation for his broken right leg.

He was discharged on April 23 and referred to a hospital in Derry for his facial

In reply to Mr Joe Barnes BL, Garda Murray said he had rang the victim on the morning of the court but was told he did not wish to attend and also did not wish to prepare a victim impact statement.

Mr Barnes went on to outline how Kyle had €5,000 in court for his victim.

Mr Barnes pleaded that the defendant had shown genuine remorse and did not seek to excuse his behaviour in any regard, though the desecration of the grave resulted in his committing an offence which he otherwise mightn’t have committed.

Passing sentence, Judge Connolly said there seemed to be a very unfortunate and disagreeable context to the matter.

Mr Drury seems to have taken out his anger on the deceased bother of Darren Kyle and it was a despicable act to desecrate the grave; an act which the court found difficult to understand, said the judge.

TRUSTEES

He said he was here to judge the actions of the defendant and not Mr Drury. It was not open to members of the public to take the law into their own hands.

He imposed a sentence of two years and six months suspended in full for four years.

A sum of €2,000 was ordered to go to Mr Drury and the remaining €3,000 to be paid to the trustees of Ballymote cemetery for its upkeep.