{"id":619553,"date":"2026-09-09T18:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T18:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/619553\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T18:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T18:20:12","slug":"cork-restaurateur-jailed-for-five-months-over-classic-road-rage-assault-on-cyclist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/619553\/","title":{"rendered":"Cork restaurateur jailed for five months over \u2018classic road rage\u2019 assault on cyclist"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Cork<\/a> restaurateur has been sentenced to five months in prison for what a judge described as a \u201cclassic case of road rage\u201d after he assaulted a cyclist and engaged in threatening behaviour.<\/p>\n

Peyman Nasser, 60, of The Downs, Broadale, Douglas Court, Cork, was also taken into custody for a period for contempt of court after repeatedly interrupting the judge during his sentencing hearing.<\/p>\n

Mr Nasser indicated that he will appeal the prison sentence imposed on him at Cork District Court<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Judge Philip O\u2019Leary finalised the case at 2.30pm on Wednesday, having directed that Mr Nasser be taken into custody some two hours earlier for contempt of court after he interrupted the sentencing on a number of occasions.<\/p>\n

Judge O\u2019Leary said: \u201cI am giving you an opportunity to apologise for your behaviour,\u201d in order to purge the contempt. Mr Nasser replied: \u201cApologise for what?\u201d<\/p>\n

After a trial, the accused was convicted of assaulting a cyclist and engaging in threatening behaviour. The judge imposed a three-month sentence on him for the threatening behaviour and a two-month sentence, to run consecutively, for the assault.<\/p>\n

Judge describes \u2018classic road rage\u2019 incident<\/p>\n

At the conclusion of the trial, where the judge heard evidence from the motorist, the cyclist and eyewitnesses at the junction of Washington Street and Grand Parade, Judge O\u2019Leary said: \u201cI am satisfied he is guilty of assault and Section 6 (engaging in threatening behaviour). It is a classic road rage incident. He was completely out of hand. The cyclist was right to take the keys out.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe (Mr Nasser) was threatening and aggressive. He did not care whether he hurt the cyclist. He lifted his bike by the saddle and knocked him to the ground and fell on top of him. It was a road rage incident. Your carry-on after \u2013 your intimidation of the injured party \u2013 was outrageous.\u201d <\/p>\n

Solicitor Donal Daly said: \u201cHe was never involved in an incident like this previously. He is 60 and is a restaurateur.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was what Mr Daly said on the day of the trial in April. On Wednesday, September 9, during the sentencing hearing, Mr Daly applied to come off record as the accused\u2019s solicitor. Judge O\u2019Leary gave him permission to come off record.<\/p>\n

Cyclist said he felt \u2018under attack\u2019<\/p>\n

On Sunday afternoon, June 6 2024, a middle-aged cyclist, Thomas Sanctuary, said he tapped on a window of the car to see what was wrong as the driver appeared to be gesticulating.<\/p>\n

He said the motorist \u201chad no regard for anyone else on that sunny Sunday and that is why we are here\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said he caught the keys and threw them in the direction of the footpath by the English Market on Grand Parade because he feared the defendant would follow him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just felt under attack,\u201d Mr Sanctuary said.<\/p>\n

Mr Nasser testified that he was driving slowly and saw the bicycle very close to the car. He said he commented at the time: \u201cYou are going to hurt yourself, mate.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the cyclist punched his car \u2013 \u201call of a sudden the big bangs coming\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said he tried to de-escalate the situation but wanted to know why the cyclist \u2018punched\u2019 the window of the car, \u201cnot to physically interact with him \u2013 that is not the way to do things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defendant said he never recovered the car key taken and thrown by the cyclist and that it was only with his partner\u2019s spare key that he drove away afterwards.<\/p>\n

He said he was the one who phoned garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n

Eyewitness Aaron Meade, who did not know any of the parties, testified: \u201cMr Nasser came after the cyclist. He lifted up the back wheel fully off the ground and tipped it over. The cyclist fell. Mr Nasser seems to have tripped on top of the cyclist, not necessarily intentionally. The struggle was more trying to disentangle themselves more than physically assault.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was demanding keys. You could see the cyclist was very nervous, looking under cars. Mr Nasser kept insisting, \u2018You get those keys\u2019. It was under threat of violence is what I took from it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Cork restaurateur has been sentenced to five months in prison for what a judge described as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[79,54,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-619553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-news","tag-courts","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619553","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=619553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}