A Dublin thug, who has over 100 previous convictions, has been jailed for nine years after he unleashed a vicious and unprovoked attack on an off-duty Garda who was left fighting for his life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Garda Paul McAuley and his colleague were attacked in an unprovoked assault on Eustace Street, Dublin, in December 2024, as a result of which he said he was\u201dleft on the street to die\u201d.<\/p>\n
His attacker, pictured above, Kevin Murphy (34) of North Frederick Street, Dublin 1, pleaded guilty to assaulting Garda McAuley on the 2nd day of a trial before the Circuit Criminal Court earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In his victim impact statement, Garda Paul McAuley detailed how he had been out at \u201cChristmas celebrations\u201d with his colleagues when his\u201d life was turned upside down\u201d after he was punched in the head, causing him to fall and hit his head off a curb, which immediately rendered him unconscious.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Garda Stephen Walsh was also assaulted in the same incident, which took place in the early hours of the 14th of December 2024.<\/p>\n
Garda McAuley said that he was \u201cleft unconscious\u201d and bleeding from the ears and had \u201cno chance\u201d to defend himself as the attack was \u201cso sudden in nature\u201d.<\/p>\n
Judge Patricia Ryan heard how the assault caused \u201clife-threatening injuries\u201d, and that family and colleagues spent Christmas that year not knowing if the injured man would survive or not, and if he did, what quality of life he would have.<\/p>\n
Garda McAuley, at times pausing, said today that his skull was fractured, that his brain was \u201cbleeding\u201d and \u201cswollen\u201d and that it has been \u201cpushed into areas it was never meant to go\u201d because of the impact to his head.<\/p>\n
He said he was left \u201cfighting for life\u201d. He had a tracheotomy to be fed through a tube, and a \u201cdrain\u201d was inserted directly through his skull while he was \u201ctotally helpless\u201d, and a portion of his skull was removed and placed inside his abdomen [a decompressive craniectomy, treatment for severe brain swelling].<\/p>\n
He said that the removal of the portion of his skull had left a \u201cvery notable concave\u201d in his head, which was \u201calmost like a physical manifestation of what had been taken\u201d from him.<\/p>\n
Garda McAuley said that he lost 20kg in weight and became \u201ca burden\u201d on his partner, who had to quit her job for six months to look after him. He described this as \u201ca bitter irony\u201d, saying he had spent his career trying to \u201cprotect others as a Garda.<\/p>\n
He said he now lives with \u201cpermanent tinnitus\u201d and has a \u201chigh-pitched ringing\u201d in his ears, and that although he has \u201cno memory\u201d of the assault, he has \u201cthe scars\u201d to \u201cremind\u201d him.<\/p>\n
His \u201cspecialist training\u201d has been \u201cderailed\u201d and he may \u201cnever be deemed fit to return to my duties\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRealistically, I should be dead,\u201d expressing gratitude to the \u201cincredible\u201d medical team at the Beaumont Hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the extent of his recovery, which a previous sitting heard required him to learn how to walk again, he said the \u201cdamage caused\u201d could \u201cnever\u201d be undone. He expressed his gratitude to the Garda team who had investigated the assault.<\/p>\n
Co-accused sentenced at earlier hearing<\/p>\n
At a previous hearing, Johnathan O\u2019Neill pleaded guilty to assault causing harm contrary to Section 3 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997. He became involved in the incident when Garda Walsh attempted to assist his colleague, who had been rendered unconscious, by confronting Murphy.<\/p>\n
The court heard that before he fled the scene, Murphy stole Garda McAuley\u2019s phone and wallet.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill punched Garda Walsh in the back of the head, causing him to fall to the ground, where the accused kicked him in the head as he lay there. Some time after the assault, it was discovered that spinal fluid was leaking from his nose.<\/p>\n
The court heard that neither of the officers remembered what happened, but that large quantities of CCTV from the time surrounding the assaults were harvested along with witness statements.<\/p>\n
Entering the witness stand to deliver a short victim impact statement, Garda Walsh, who suffered permanent hearing damage as a result of the assault, said that he cannot forget the worry he felt for Garda McAuly, who was in a coma for an extended period of time after the assault.<\/p>\n
He said that \u201cfor over a month\u201d he didn\u2019t know if his colleaguesand friend woud live or what quality of life he would have if he did survive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose thoughts haunted me for a long time and left me with a feeling of guilt that I could have done more to help him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was so badly injured\u201d, he said, adding, \u201cI got to spend Christmas with family and friends\u201d while Garda McAuley lay in hospital.<\/p>\n
Turning to his own injuries, he said that he couldn\u2019t work properly and that this affects him every day, both personally and with his career, as Garda\u00ed are subject to hearing tests.<\/p>\n
He expressed his thanks to his colleagues and those who \u201chelped on the night\u201d.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed combed through CCTV to identify suspects\u00a0<\/p>\n
After the incident, the court heard that a Garda Kennedy was canvassing for CCTV in the area when O\u2019Neill made himself known to the officer, telling him he had been in the area on the night in question. After this, Garda Kennedy noticed a man wearing the same outfit as O\u2019Neill on CCTV, which led to his identification as a suspect. When he was arrested on Austin Quay a short time later, he said: \u201cI knew this was coming\u201d.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill, 35, of Cromcastle Road, Kilmore, Dublin 5, \u00a0said that he didn\u2019t remember what had happened, which the court heard was due to his \u201cingestion\u201d of heroin and crack cocaine on the night.<\/p>\n
The accused has 37 previous convictions, including two for robbery, eight for theft, two for trespass in a building, one for obstruction, one for attempted theft, one under the Drugs Act, and six for Public Order offences.<\/p>\n
Michael Liam O\u2019Higgins SC, defending, told the court that on the evening in question Murphy, the co-accused, had been seen by three women \u2018striding\u2019 up the road with a \u201clevel of aggression\u201d before he launched his attack.<\/p>\n
He argued that when the accused was interviewed, he was asked, \u201cWere you just helping your friend out?\u201d and said that this was the case.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Higgins said that the more serious injuries had been caused by the kick to Garda Walsh\u2019s head, and that his client had grown up with a \u201cvery\u201d violent father.<\/p>\n
A letter of apology penned by the accused was read before the court after Garda Walsh indicated that it was acceptable to him, albeit \u201clate in the day\u201d.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill wrote, \u201cwhat happened was totally wrong\u201d, and that he had \u201ctotally misread the situation\u201d and is \u201cso sorry\u201d for Garda Walsh and his family.<\/p>\n
He has been in custody since the 17th of December 2024 and has done courses in psychology and \u201canti-violence\u201d, the court heard.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill was jailed for three years and three months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Dublin thug, who has over 100 previous convictions, has been jailed for nine years after he unleashed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4101,54,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-457558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-assault","tag-courts","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\/457558","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=457558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}