A man accused of carrying out a \u201cviolent and unprovoked attack\u201d on Kerry TD Michael Healy-Rae in south central Dublin this week has been refused bail and remanded to the custody of Cloverhill Prison.<\/p>\n
The day after the \u201cpolitically motivated\u201d attack, garda\u00ed saw and arrested a man who was spotted in the same clothes, walking the same dog with same harness on the same road the incident took place, the court was told.<\/p>\n
Anthony Foley (51) with an address at Rosary Road, Maryland, Dublin 8, appeared before Dublin District Court charged with assault causing harm against the Kerry D\u00e1il deputy, an offence which carries an up to 10-year sentence upon conviction.<\/p>\n
Foley, it was alleged, spotted Healy-Rae in his liveried Skoda vehicle when the TD was stopped in traffic on Cork Street with the window down while driving home from Leinster House on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHigh-quality\u201d CCTV footage of the incident allegedly shows the man, who garda\u00ed identified as Foley, approaching the TD\u2019s car while shouting: \u201cAh bucko, you\u2019re in the wrong area. Get out of here you f**king snake,\u201d<\/p>\n
Det Gda Paul Nolan, attached to the serious crime unit at Kevin Street Garda station, alleged that Foley reached into the driver side window of the politician\u2019s vehicle and punched him in the face before fleeing from the scene.<\/p>\n
The court heard that Healy-Rae alerted garda\u00ed to the incident by calling 999. The same CCTV footage showed the Kerry deputy getting out of his car with blood on his face.<\/p>\n
Healy-Rae suffered a laceration on his mouth in the alleged assault and needed seven stitches. He received first aid at Kevin Street Garda station before being brought to St Vincent\u2019s hospital for further treatment.<\/p>\n
Nolan said the force had taken a photo of the injuries the TD suffered in the incident, but will need a dental assessment to determine whether further \u201corthodontic damage\u201d was done.<\/p>\n
Foley was seen in the same area the next day by garda\u00ed who spoke to him on Cork Street shortly after midday, allegedly wearing the same clothes as the person who was spotted on CCTV the previous day and walking the same \u201cdistinctive\u201d dog.<\/p>\n
He was spoken to by garda\u00ed and arrested. Nolan gave evidence of arrest, charge and caution, and said Foley made no reply when charged.<\/p>\n
Defence solicitor Richard Young said that in the course of interview, his client disputed garda\u00ed identifying him as the perpetrator of the assault, \u201cNot me 100 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also disputed owning the hat and jacket worn by the person in the video and said there were \u201csix or seven dogs\u201d which resembled the canine in the video footage given the mother of his dog had eight puppies.<\/p>\n
Foley told garda\u00ed a \u201cdistinctive\u201d harness identified by them was readily available in Lidl and many local shops.<\/p>\n
The garda said Foley had asked \u201cWhat\u2019s that around me dog\u2019s neck?\u201d during interview, but Young said that was under dispute.<\/p>\n
The solicitor said the case is ultimately an identification issue and that no \u201cidentification parade\u201d or line-up of suspects was carried out.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed objected to granting Foley bail, citing the \u201cnature and degree of serious offence\u201d of the \u201cviolent and unprovoked attack\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nolan said the alleged offence was \u201cpolitically motivated\u201d and garda\u00ed fear that Foley \u201cmay commit further politically motivated assaults\u201d should he be granted bail.<\/p>\n
Nolan said there were \u201cno conditions\u201d that would satisfy its objections. <\/p>\n
Young could not understand the bail objection on \u201cincredibly weak\u201d identification evidence and submitted that it was \u201cincredibly dangerous\u201d to sanction pretrial detention based on it. He said it was \u201cquite clear\u201d that it was not his client in the CCTV.<\/p>\n
He said Foley, unemployed and in receipt of social welfare, \u201cappreciates the injuries to Healy-Rae are quite serious\u201d and would be willing to sign on with a surety of \u20ac500 or \u20ac1,000.<\/p>\n
Judge Karen Dowling refused bail citing Section 2 of the Bail Act in order to \u201cprevent the commission of further offences\u201d noting the \u201cserious\u201d nature of the alleged offence.<\/p>\n
She remanded Foley to the custody of Cloverhill Prison and he is due in court again on Tuesday, September 22nd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man accused of carrying out a \u201cviolent and unprovoked attack\u201d on Kerry TD Michael Healy-Rae in south…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,24878,43],"class_list":["post-628702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-michael-healy-rae","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628702","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=628702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}