{"id":451471,"date":"2026-05-16T05:49:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T05:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/451471\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T05:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T05:49:10","slug":"man-jailed-for-assault-on-homeless-limerick-man-as-he-was-settling-down-to-sleep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/451471\/","title":{"rendered":"Man jailed for assault on homeless Limerick man as he was settling down to sleep"},"content":{"rendered":"

A MAN who attacked a homeless man when he was \u201csettling down to sleep\u201d in a \u201cvicious and cowardly attack\u201d, has been jailed<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kevin Meehan of Inbhear na Sionna, Shannon was found guilty by a jury of assaulting a homeless man, as well as being in possession of an article, namely a vodka bottle.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He separately pleaded guilty to criminal damage of a food business on O’Connell Street, Limerick when he smashed a front window, as well as possession of an article, namely a hammer, which he intended to use to cause damage – these offences occurred on January 21, 2025 in the city centre.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The court heard that the 31-year-old had a hammer in a bag and he \u201cviolently and without justification, threw the hammer at force at the window\u201d and it was captured on CCTV.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In relation to the assault, a homeless man was settling down to sleep with a sleeping bag, when Mr Meehan approached him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The victim told garda\u00ed that the defendant asked him for money. Mr Meehan started tapping the victim’s pockets and when he was told he had no money, Mr Meehan hit him with a vodka bottle and his fists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Meehan fled the scene and when he was apprehended, he screamed: \u201cGet the f*** away from me\u201d at officers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kevin Meehan changed his legal representation on the day of sentencing and an application was made for Liam Carroll BL to be replaced by Amy Nix BL, which was granted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Judge Colin Daly said: \u201cI’m not going to interfere with Mr Meehan’s wishes in that regard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court heard that Mr Meehan has five previous convictions for assault, two previous convictions for criminal damage, one conviction for a threat to kill, as well as 38 previous convictions for public order offences.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Representing Mr Meehan at the sentencing hearing, Liam Carroll BL said that the offences were committed against the \u201cbackdrop of Mr Meehan having alcohol and drinking too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

He told the court that Mr Meehan found himself in a situation of \u201cmandatory sobriety\u201d when he was in custody in 2022, but that when released \u201che was always at risk of falling back into addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Meehan, who is serving a sentence for a separate incident, was described in court as being a \u201cmodel prisoner\u201d who has engaged with addiction support, meetings and training.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe finds keeping himself busy is important to avoid relapse. He does not want to be drinking on the streets,\u201d Mr Carroll said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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When the sentence was handed down, Mr Meehan sat with his head in his hands and muttered the words – \u201cFive years and 10 months – a f***ing joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

In delivering his sentence, Judge Daly said that the damage to the business premises when the front window was broken amounted to just over \u20ac200, and while the owner didn’t give a victim impact statement, the judge said that they must have felt a \u201cconsiderable impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted that the defendant \u201cwas intoxicated, has a significant problem with alcohol and went out armed with a hammer and caused unprovoked and deliberate damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

In relation to the assault, the judge said that the victim was a \u201cvulnerable unsuspecting man, who was settling down to sleep – he was an easy target.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a callous and brutal assault – a particularly vicious and cowardly attack. It was unprovoked and completely unwarranted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Colin Daly sentenced him to two years for the criminal damage offence, another five years for the assault and another sentence of five years for possession of an article, being a bottle, while the other offences were taken into consideration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sentences are to run concurrently, while Mr Meehan is also serving a current sentence for an offence which was before Ennis Circuit Court. The sentences will run consecutive to his current one, and he will serve five years and 10 months in total.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sentences are also backdated to give credit for time served. The judge also ordered that Mr Meehan be under the supervision of the probation services for one year post release in order to facilitate his rehabilitation and reintegration into society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A MAN who attacked a homeless man when he was \u201csettling down to sleep\u201d in a \u201cvicious and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,61,60,1396,67397,43],"class_list":["post-451471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-limerick","tag-limerick-circuit-court","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451471","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=451471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}