{"id":479757,"date":"2026-06-02T20:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T20:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/479757\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T20:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T20:27:11","slug":"man-who-died-after-blanchardstown-attack-suffered-traumatic-injuries-court-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/479757\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who died after Blanchardstown attack suffered \u2018traumatic\u2019 injuries, court hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A postmortem has established that Alex Coughlan, who died after being severely injured in Blanchardstown last month, suffered \u201ctraumatic\u201d head and neck injuries, a court has heard.<\/p>\n

Coughlan, who was 37, was found unconscious on May 17th on Mill Road. <\/p>\n

He was brought to the hospital in a critical condition, where he was pronounced dead three days later.<\/p>\n

Shortly after his death , garda\u00ed charged two boys over the incident.<\/p>\n

The pair, aged 16 and 17, are accused of causing serious harm to Coughlan, under section 4 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act. <\/p>\n

They were also charged with robbing him of his bank cards and a \u20ac300 gold ring.<\/p>\n

The boys, who cannot be named because they are minors, had been refused bail in the District Court on May 20th. However, the younger defendant made a fresh application before Justice Sean Gillane in the High Court<\/a> in Cloverhill on Tuesday, which was also denied.<\/p>\n

Objecting to bail and citing the seriousness of the case, Garda Sgt Emma Ryan told the court Coughlan had injuries to his neck area, scrapes to his knees and elbows, which corroborated that he was on his knees pleading with his attacker and he had \u201cno defensive injuries\u201d.<\/p>\n

The court heard he suffered severe bruising and there was evidence of suffocation and choking.<\/p>\n

Ryan agreed with Keith Branagan BL, for the State, that it was a sustained assault and footage was available. She described it as a small snippet which was taken from the 16-year-old\u2019s phone and \u201cshowed the deceased on his knees begging for his life, before the selfie camera shows the teenager\u2019s face\u201d.<\/p>\n

The court heard it was an arranged meeting but set up under false pretences for the purpose of committing robbery and extortion offences and no other motive. <\/p>\n

She said Coughlan was walking down the road before the pair blocked him. The court heard the second teenager punched him and Coughlan fell but tried to run and was pursued by both boys and received kicks and punches. <\/p>\n

It was alleged the co-accused told him, \u201cI will smash the f**k out of you\u201d, you f**king little b***h\u201d and the 16-year-old bail applicant told him to give him his gold ring.<\/p>\n

His bank cards were used in local shops minutes later, and a ring given to Coughlan by his father was taken and worn by the 16-year-old. The sergeant said the boy still had it on him at the time of his arrest. <\/p>\n

The sergeant was concerned the teenager considered the deceased prey and the bail hearing was told Coughlan\u2019s number was saved on the co-accused youth\u2019s phone as \u201cPrey 2\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said a file is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to bringing a more serious charge.<\/p>\n

The sergeant agreed with defence counsel Ronan Prendergast BL that there were no messages exchanged between his client and Coughlan. <\/p>\n

Prendergast submitted his client\u2019s father, who was present in the court, had \u20ac1,000 available for a surety.<\/p>\n

Counsel said the boy would abide by conditions and engage with a bail supervision scheme linked to the juvenile justice system.<\/p>\n

However, Gillane noted the objections and refused bail.<\/p>\n

He said the boy had to be aware Coughlan was left \u201cprone, injured and bloodied\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A postmortem has established that Alex Coughlan, who died after being severely injured in Blanchardstown last month, suffered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,613,16186,615,73,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-479757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-blanchardstown","tag-director-of-public-prosecutions","tag-dublin","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479757","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=479757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}