Tralee Circuit Court<\/a> judge Ronan Munro said there was no explanation from 32-year-old Tadhg Moran of 44 Mitchels Road, Tralee, as to why he set a human being on fire with petrol.<\/p>\nThe injured party, 34-year-old Michael O\u2019Shea from Causeway, told the court he cannot sleep as he is afraid to, since the incident.<\/p>\n
Mr Moran and Mr O\u2019Shea, who had gone to school together, happened upon each other on a night out in Tralee on the 21st September 2024.<\/p>\n
The pair had not seen each other in years but spent the rest of the night socialising together; the court heard things were extremely cordial between them.<\/p>\n
Mr Moran invited Mr O\u2019Shea back to his house on Mitchels Road in Tralee, before Mr O\u2019Shea fell asleep in Tadhg Moran\u2019s kitchen.<\/p>\n
He then woke up to his neck burning, and immediately put out the flame, before leaving the house and eventually presenting at University Hospital Kerry for his injuries.<\/p>\n
Mr Moran was arrested and made admissions, that he had poured a few drops of petrol on Mr O\u2019Shea\u2019s neck while he slept, got a lighter and set him on fire.<\/p>\n
The court heard that the only ill-word between them all night had been a brief and minor disagreement about Mr Moran\u2019s treatment of his dog, but Mr Moran did not use this as an explanation for the incident.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Shea suffered burns to his neck and ear, and was referred to a consultant plastic surgeon.<\/p>\n
Detective garda John Gilmartin, led by prosecuting barrister Tom Rice, agreed there was no logic to what occurred.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Shea told the court in his victim impact statement, he has had to give up work as he\u2019s not able to sleep since the incident.<\/p>\n
He said he suffers from night terrors, PTSD, insomnia, depression, and panic attacks, and the attack is a constant weight on his shoulders.<\/p>\n
He said he hopes Mr Moran gets the help he needs.<\/p>\n
Defending barrister Katie O\u2019Connell submitted Mr Moran entered an early guilty plea, and has alcohol issues, but hasn\u2019t drank since.<\/p>\n
Judge Ronan Munro<\/a> said lots of people drink themselves insensible, but they don\u2019t set humans on fire.<\/p>\nMr Moran read out an apology to Michael O\u2019Shea in court, in which he said he takes responsibility for his actions.<\/p>\n
Judge Munro adjourned the case for a psychological report on Mr Moran, and he told Mr Moran, \u201cYou\u2019re in big trouble\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A court has heard that a Tralee man poured petrol on the neck of a former school friend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,63462],"class_list":["post-331007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-petrol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331007","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=331007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}