![\"Tony](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/af5470a5-12cd-4f63-a283-9c2f80e8630a.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTony Joyce (28) used a shatter hammer to break windows when he \u201cfreaked out\u201d on waking in an empty, out-of-service train at Dublin\u2019s Connolly Station\n<\/p>\n
Tony Joyce (28) used a shatter hammer to break windows when he \u201cfreaked out\u201d on waking in an empty, out-of-service train at Dublin\u2019s Connolly Station.<\/p>\n
Judge Michelle Finan found him not guilty of recklessly or intentionally causing the damage, accepting that he had a panic attack, felt threatened and acted out what he had believed was \u201cnecessity.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tony Joyce<\/p>\n
News in 90 Seconds – September 5th 2025 <\/p>\n
Mr Joyce, with an address at Barrack Street, Dundalk, Co Louth pleaded not guilty at Dublin District Court to causing \u20ac3,500 worth of criminal damage.<\/p>\n
Judge Finan dismissed the charge after a non-jury trial.<\/p>\n
Garda Jason Walsh told the court on June 29 last year, he was called to Connolly and found windows had been broken on the Dundalk to Dublin train.<\/p>\n
Mr Joyce was sitting on the ground with blood on his legs and admitted using the shatter hammer before climbing out of the windows. The garda noticed he seemed unsteady on his feet and \u201cappeared somewhat intoxicated.\u201d<\/p>\n
After arresting him, he also noticed Mr Joyce had a mobile phone in his pocket.<\/p>\n
Irish Rail crime prevention officer Vincent Connolly said as well as the cost of the damage to seven carriage windows, the train had to be taken out of service for repairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat affected our delivery of service to customers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The court heard the city was very busy on the day as there was a concert at the Aviva Stadium and a football match in Croke Park.<\/p>\n
Cross-examined by defence barrister Aoife Mutch, Mr Connolly said the door opening buttons or alarm would not have worked because the train was powered off.<\/p>\n
Mr Connolly also said while passengers had fallen asleep and been inadvertently locked into trains before, drivers always walked up and down at the end of service to check the carriages.<\/p>\n
In evidence, Mr Joyce said he had been at a hospital appointment and had a fresh head injury when he got the train from Drogheda. He was supposed to get off in Dundalk, but he had to take a lot of painkillers and fell asleep and woke up \u201cin a place I\u2019d never seen before\u201d which was \u201ca yard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know where I was, I had a panic attack,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He tried to pull open the doors and pressed the emergency alarm button but it did not work.<\/p>\n
He saw a sign that read \u201cin case of emergency, shatter hammer\u201d and he thought \u201cit\u2019s an emergency\u201d so used it to get out.<\/p>\n
Gda Walsh put it to him it would have been \u201cmore reasonable\u201d to use his phone to ring 999.<\/p>\n
\u201cI panicked,\u201d Mr Joyce replied.<\/p>\n
Ms Mutch asked the judge to dismiss the charge, arguing reasonable excuse and \u201cthe defence of necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge said she was acceding to this, that Mr Joyce was presumed innocent and she had a doubt following his evidence of having a panic attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tony Joyce (28) used a shatter hammer to break windows when he \u201cfreaked out\u201d on waking in an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-2611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}