Two men who are charged in relation to instances of assault and violent disorder surrounding the fatal stabbing of Quham Babatunde on the 15th of February 2025 have been sentenced to five years in prison.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Judge Martin Nolan, sitting at the Circuit Criminal Court, heard \u201ccompletely innocent bystanders\u201d were also assaulted in the course of the violence which spilled out across the Dawson Street area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The court heard evidence from Detective Sergeant Pat Traynor, stationed at Pearse Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the course of the violent asylum seeker Quham Babatunde received four knife wounds in the midst of the melee, with another man, not before the courts today, charged in relation to his murder.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Faraj Odukoya, aged 20, with an address at Brega, Hamlet Lane, Balbriggan, Co Dublin, who was involved in looting after the Dublin riots in November 2023, pleaded guilty to three counts of assault causing harm and one count of violent disorder on the night in question, as well as two counts of burglary during the riots.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two of the counts of assault causing harm relate to Mr Babatunde at Anne Street South and Adetola Adetuilehim at Duke Lane.<\/p>\n
John Eghomwanre of Dun Emer Glade, Lusk, Co Dublin, is accused of assault causing harm to Mr Babatunde on Anne Street South and to Mr Adetuilehim at Duke Lane.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caroline Latham BL, prosecuting, told the court that the violence erupted adjacent to Club 22 where eight males charged in relation to the matter were socialising in a VIP area, but that there were \u201cno significant interactions\u201d between the parties in the club.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After the parties left the venue, violence erupted in the midst of which Babatunde was fatally wounded, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The \u201cviolent attacks\u201d continued on Duke Lane, where another man, Adetola Adetuilehim, who was a friend of the deceased, was attacked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The court heard that seven other males and females were also assaulted, and that Garda\u00ed launched 300 lines of enquiry during their investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eghomwanre \u201cpunched\u201d the fatally wounded Babatunde approximately five times and was \u201cthe first of the initial aggressors to attack him\u201d by \u201cshoving him and pushing him to the ground\u201d.<\/p>\n
Odukoya was the second to assault the now deceased man, punching him several times, the court heard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The court heard that the fatally injured man was also assaulted repeatedly after being stabbed as he struggled along the street before collapsing on Duke Lane.<\/p>\n
John Eghomwanre punched Adetola Adetuilehim in the face as well as kneeing him in the face twice while Faraj Odukoya punched him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After this, the violence progressed from Duke Lane to Anne Street, on to Dawson where a number of \u201ccompletely innocent bystanders\u201d were assaulted outside Cafe en Seine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here, three people unconnected to the group violence were assaulted by Eghomwanre.<\/p>\n
Judge Nolan remarked that it seemed that \u201ctheir blood was up and it seemed they were going to attack anybody they encountered.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court heard that more assaults took place further up Dawson Street, which were carried out by others.<\/p>\n
John Eghomwanre, who was arrested on the 7th of March 2025,\u00a0 has previous convictions for violent disorder, production of an article, threatening to damage property, road traffic offences, and convictions under the Misuse of Drugs Act.<\/p>\n
\u00a0He was on bail as well as being the subject of a suspended sentence at the time.<\/p>\n
Faraj Odukoya was arrested on the 10th of March 2025 and \u201ctook responsibility for his actions\u201d, Detective Sergeant Traynor said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Odukoya has 12 previous convictions, including two for the sale and supply of drugs, possession of drugs, two for failure to appear, one for no insurance, one for driving without a licence, as well as convictions for obstruction and trespass.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Defending counsel for John Eghomwanre, Tony McGillicuddy SC, argued that when his client was interviewed by investigating Garda\u00ed about the death of Quham Babatunde, he said, \u201cI did not take part in any planned stabbing, I didn\u2019t know anything about a knife, I am not a murderer.\u201d<\/p>\n
He argued that his client was born outside of Dublin but moved there with his mother, who passed away when he was 15, before his father \u201cmoved to Ireland\u201d to take care of him and a number of step-siblings.<\/p>\n
McGillicuddy said that his client appreciates that the family of Mr Babatunde \u201chave suffered a terrible loss\u201d.<\/p>\n
The father of one \u201chas some contact with his daughter\u201d and has \u201csought to express his remorse about what happened on the night\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Counsel for Faraj Odukoya said that his client had been 18 when he took part in looting during the Dublin riots, and 19 on the night of the violent disorder surrounding the fatal stabbing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While in Garda custody, he \u201ctook responsibility for his actions and said he intended to plead\u201d and was aware of the \u201cdevastation that was wreaked\u201d on those affected.<\/p>\n
He had consumed \u201ca significant amount of alcohol\u201d, and \u201cHe thought his friends had been attacked or wronged in a manner that warranted the use of force.\u201d<\/p>\n
Counsel argued that Odukoya had inflicted \u201ca great deal of racist bullying in 5th class\u201d and that he had begun to abuse cannabis at the age of 14.<\/p>\n
Due to the \u201ctrauma of the bullying\u201d, he \u201cbecame hyperactive\u201d and left school without a qualification, the court heard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Telling both men to stand up, Judge Nolan said that it seemed that on the night \u201cboth of them as well as the deceased man and the injured parties\u201d were at a nightclub when \u201cdifficulties developed\u201d and they \u201cbehaved in a violent way\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said that the \u201cpoor deceased\u201d was \u201cpunched, kicked, and shoved\u201d.<\/p>\n
He continued, \u201cIt seems somebody used a knife on the deceased,\u201d and that, \u201cwhile they \u00a0[the two accused before the court] attacked him, they cannot be punished for his death.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were involved in serious violence\u201d, which \u201canyone who saw must have been intimidated and affected by it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said there was \u201cno excuse\u201d for his behaviour, albeit they had \u201cprobably had drink taken\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Judge Nolan said that it seemed that Odukoya \u201cwas involved in burglaries in what has been referred to as the night of the Dublin riots\u201d and that it \u201cseems\u00a0 he decided he wanted shoes, Nike runners or something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth are very sorry that the deceased is dead,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously these two men had no hand, act, or part in the stabbing; they cannot be punished for what they didn\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court set a headline sentence of eight years in respect of both men before reducing this to five years for each, which is to be backdated to the dates they went into custody.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two men who are charged in relation to instances of assault and violent disorder surrounding the fatal stabbing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[229577,1115,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-540331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-babatunde","tag-crime","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\/540331","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=540331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}