Assault duo mother’s €50k welfare income
Brothers jailed over attack had ‘no role model growing up’, court told
THE mother of two brothers jailed for a ‘frenzied’ knife attack on a Portuguese man that left him unable to work has convictions dating back to the early 1990s.
Last week, Brandon, 18, and Ciarán McDonnell, 20, were jailed for ten and eight years after pleading guilty to assaulting Vitor Vieira in a St Patrick’s Day assault.
The court heard that the brothers had had ‘no role model’, and that their parents abdicated responsibility in raising their children.
The men’s mother Patricia, who has 16 children, has a long history of shoplifting – and received well over €50,000 a year in State benefits, a court heard when she faced charges in 2013 of handling stolen goods worth over €2,000.
In convicting her, Judge Seamus Hughes said that it was not enough that the defendant received €1,000 a week from the State, but she felt that she has to supplement her income by ‘preying on businesses’.
Last week sons Brandon and Ciarán of College Park, Longford were jailed after pleading guilty to assaulting Mr Vieira and causing him serious harm on March 17, 2017. A third defendant – a minor – will be sentenced in October.
Judge Keenan Johnson said that the assault perpetrated on Mr Vieira, who lost his home as a result of being unable to work following the attack, was one of the worst he had ever dealt with and apologised to him on behalf of the country.
‘It is horrific to think that on our national day, a visitor to our country, who has worked for 17 years here and made it his home should have been subjected to such a savage and unprovoked attack,’ the judge said.
‘I want it put on the record that Mr Vieira is welcome in this country and his contribution is acknowledged and recognised. I also want to apologise to him for the fact that he was subject to such a savage assault on our national day.’
Before handing down sentences in the case, Judge Johnson pointed out that the attack on Mr Vieira had involved ‘three perpetrators against one vulnerable and defenceless victim’. Having read the probation report, he noted that Ciarán McDonnell appeared to have ‘little remorse or victim empathy, and he is not willing to tackle his drug addiction and anger management issues’.
Meanwhile, the probation report on Brandon McDonnell noted his excess use of alcohol and drugs. ‘Given the gravity of his offending and the frenzied manner in which he used the knife to inflict injuries on the victim, it is clear that Brandon McDonnell has serious anger management issues which need to be urgently addressed,’ he said.
The court then pointed to the brothers’ family background. ‘There is no role model in the household from which any of them could take guidance,’ the judge confirmed. The men’s mother, Patricia, has more than 60 previous convictions – mostly theft – and receives over €50,000 in tax free payments.
A PAYE worker would have to earn some €85,000 a year to take home €50,000 a year.
When Patricia McDonnell – at that stage, a mother of 13 – was convicted of holding in stolen goods in 2013 Judge Hughes accused her of supplementing her income by ‘preying on businesses’.
The judge also told the courtroom the sentence he gave her was supposed to deter her from committing further crime. But he said that if he did jail her the governor of the prison would give her early release because she was the mother of 13 children.
In 2009 a pregnant Patricia McDonnell was sentenced to 11 months in jail for shoplifting, but served just three weeks after the prison released her. ‘There were complications,’ she told the court.
Judge Hughes said the governor had ignored her 56 previous convictions. He said: ‘The practice of giving this defendant early release because she is not involved in violent crime reinforces her commitment to crime.’ The court also heard that Patricia McDonnell’s history of shoplifting had ‘closed down business and left decent people unemployed’.
Judge Hughes later let Patricia McDonnell, who is from Longford, got off with a suspended sentence.
Speaking to the MoS in 2013 Ms McDonnell said the judge was ‘fair’ and said she was putting her criminal life behind her. ‘I am going to stop. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. I suffered from postnatal depression with all of my children and I wasn’t thinking straight.’
She is currently appealing a custodial sentence for shoplifting handed down in recent weeks.
She was ‘preying on businesses’ ‘Savage assault on our national day’