{"id":505848,"date":"2026-06-18T10:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/505848\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T10:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:02:12","slug":"former-boxer-jailed-for-attacking-stag-party-who-sang-the-sash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/505848\/","title":{"rendered":"Former boxer jailed for attacking stag party who sang ‘The Sash’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former boxer who viciously assaulted members of a stag party because they sang ‘The Sash’ in a Co Donegal hotel has been jailed for two years.<\/p>\n

David Kelly pleaded guilty at Donegal Circuit Court to assaulting the two men in the resident’s bar of the Frontier Hotel in Bridgend on April 6th, 2019.<\/p>\n

Extensive CCTV footage played in court showed the 47-year-old flailing blows on a number of the men, knocking some to the ground with just one punch.<\/p>\n

The court was later told that Kelly also kicked and stomped on one of his victims during the incident in the resident’s bar of the hotel at 2am.<\/p>\n

One of the men lost his two front teeth while the other suffered a suspected broken nose.<\/p>\n

Sentencing Kelly, of Lecky Road in Derry to two years in prison, Judge John Aylmer said he noted Kelly’s stance and posture during the incident and described his hands as weapons.<\/p>\n

Garda Shauna Kerr attended the incident on the night and outlined what had happened to prosecuting barrister, Mr Fiona Crawford, BL.<\/p>\n

Cross-examining Garda Kerr, defence barrister, Mr Gareth McGrory, BL, asked if she was aware that his client had told the Probation Services the reason he reacted was that comments had been made to him which he perceived to be sectarian.<\/p>\n

Mr McGrory also said his client had claimed the men had been singing ‘The Sash.’<\/p>\n

Garda Kerr said she was aware of the claims but that the CCTV footage had no sound on it.<\/p>\n

Both victims, Mr Jim Mulholland and Mr Fintan McAfee, required medical attention after the incident but both had declined to make victim impact statements.<\/p>\n

Mr Mulholland was forced to pay \u00a31,250 for his dental treatment while McAfee attended Craigavon Hospital with a suspected broken nose.<\/p>\n

The court was told the accused had a total of 43 previous convictions but these were before this incident in 2019.<\/p>\n

The convictions are for a range of offences including assault, criminal damage, public order, theft, armed robbery and traffic offences.<\/p>\n

Kelly is originally from the Brandywell area and has three children.<\/p>\n

Mr McGrory said on the day in question, Kelly had been drinking all day celebrating a friend’s birthday and was staying in the hotel.<\/p>\n

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He again said his client says he reacted to sectarian comments which had been made to him.<\/p>\n

He later shook the hand of one of his victims and apologised and again wanted to apologise to Mr Mulholland and Mr McAfee.<\/p>\n

The barrister then revealed that Kelly had been the victim of an attack by a number of men in Derry since this incident and had suffered some brain damage.<\/p>\n

He had limited education and left school aged sixteen and had worked as a bricklayer for most of his life.<\/p>\n

Mr McGrory admitted this was a very unpleasant incident, that he had dealt with it as best he could but suggested his client had since turned a corner.<\/p>\n

He added that he had now secured an address in Donegal and was prepared to do community service if the court was so minded.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, he was not able to offer his victims any compensation as he has not been working.<\/p>\n

Passing sentence, Judge Aylmer said an aggravating feature was that the accused was a boxer at a very high level and this explained his posture and stance when he “took on a group of young men.”<\/p>\n

He said he didn’t hold much weight to the suggestion that he didn’t reach for any weapons such as bottles, adding that his fists were his weapons in this incident.<\/p>\n

Another aggravating factor was his list of previous convictions.<\/p>\n

Before mitigation, he placed the incident at the mid-range of such offences albeit at the upper end and both charges deserved a sentence of three and a half years on each count.<\/p>\n

However, he came to court on a signed plea and that usually merited a one third reduction and he also saved his victims and the state a trial.<\/p>\n

He also showed remorse and despite his previous convictions, he has behaved himself an awful lot better since this incident in 2019.<\/p>\n

For all these factors, he said he was reducing the headline sentence of three and a half years by fourteen months to one of two years in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former boxer who viciously assaulted members of a stag party because they sang ‘The Sash’ in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-505848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505848","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=505848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}