{"id":521873,"date":"2026-06-27T23:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T23:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/521873\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T23:03:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T23:03:10","slug":"judge-gives-cork-man-bounce-of-the-ball-and-dismisses-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/521873\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge gives Cork man \u2018bounce of the ball\u2019 and dismisses charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">Charges brought against a Cork man for unlawful hunting or entry on land and failing to keep a dog under control in public as well as not wearing a seatbelt where dismissed at a recent sitting of Macroom District Court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The charges relating to illegal hunting brought against DJ O\u2019Driscoll, aged 29, of Lower Codrum, Macroom, Co Cork, related to an incident at Wood Road, Carriganine, Macroom, Co Cork on July 23, 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">A previous hearing heard that garda\u00ed had received a call from a landowner about three males with dogs trespassing on land in the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">When garda\u00ed were travelling to the scene they met DJ O\u2019Driscoll on the public road with a lurcher dog that was not under control.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">O\u2019Driscoll said he had permission from one landowner to hunt but not from the neighbouring landowner and his dog had strayed onto the neighbouring land and he had gone after it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The landowner told garda\u00ed that O\u2019Driscoll and two other males had been on the land without permission.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">O\u2019Driscoll, who had 66 previous convictions, appeared before Judge Andrew Cody. His solicitor Patrick Goold told the court that O\u2019Driscoll had completed a residential treatment programme for alcohol addiction since his last court appearance and was continuing to receive aftercare.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Mr Goold said O\u2019Driscoll was \u201cfor the first time in his life free of alcohol\u201d. He said his client had severe alcohol dependency issues which had led to ongoing problems with criminality.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The court heard that O\u2019Driscoll was now working full-time with a local company and had made significant progress in addressing his issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">After reading a probation report and a report from the alcohol treatment centre, Judge Andrew Cody said it was clear O\u2019Driscoll was making efforts to address his problems.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The judge said that \u201canyone who is turning their life around deserves a bounce of the ball\u201d and dismissed the three charges subject to the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The judge ordered O\u2019Driscoll to make a donation of \u20ac1,000 to the Cork Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, to be paid by July 15, 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Funded by the Courts Reporting Scheme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charges brought against a Cork man for unlawful hunting or entry on land and failing to keep a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2246,79,54,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-521873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-court","tag-cork-news","tag-courts","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521873","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=521873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}