A business student has been jailed for four years after he admitted punching and kicking another young man 250 times in a 20-minute assault as he lay helpless on the ground in Cork city centre.
Darragh McLoughlin (22) of Richmond Hill, Cork pleaded guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to assault causing serious harm to the other man at Paul Street in Cork on October 18th, 2022.
Judge Jonathan Dunphy said it was nothing short of miraculous the victim had not suffered life-threatening injuries as he sentenced McLoughlin to 6½ years with 2½ suspended.
Det Garda Joe Crowley had told the court the incident began some distance away outside the Secret Garden nightclub at Rearden’s on Washington Street at 1.15am on the night in question.
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It started with a calm conversation and interaction between the parties before becoming a brief physical altercation outside the nightclub. The victim then left but was followed by McLoughlin.
McLoughlin believed his phone had been stolen and there was some history of bad blood between them, as McLoughlin had been assaulted a year earlier by a group associated with the injured party.
The court was shown a CCTV recording of the assault in which McLoughlin confronted the injured party on Paul Street and wrestled him to the ground before beginning a sustained assault on him.
Det Garda Crowley said gardaí had counted 250 separate blows – either punches, kicks or stamps – by McLoughlin on the injured party, with the assault continuing until gardaí arrived and arrested him.
Judge Dunphy noted at the sentencing hearing that many people in court looked away when the CCTV footage of the assault was played and McLoughlin himself could not bring himself to watch it.
McLoughlin had used the victim’s own phone to record a 77-second section of the assault and it also had audio on the attack in which he could be heard ordering the injured party to stop protecting himself.
“He instructs him to put his hands down so he can kick him in the skull unprotected. I counted 14 kicks to the head in that,” said Judge Dunphy, adding the victim sustained 50 kicks to the face.
The victim suffered multiple fractures of the right eye socket and fractures of nasal bones, and was left with double vision and what was described as an ongoing deformity as a result of the attack.
McLoughlin, who also admitted robbing his victim of his iPhone7, later accepted when shown the CCTV footage of the assault that he had engaged in animalistic behaviour, so frenzied was the attack.
Det Garda Crowley read the injured party’s victim impact statement to the court and in it, he said it was undoubtedly the worst day of his life and he was still trying to remember all that happened.
He said he still has nightmares and flashbacks to the night and said he found it extremely frightening to see the condition of his face in hospital, adding: “I still don’t fully recognise myself.”
He said it affected him mentally and physically, from waking up each morning until going to sleep at night and that it would affect him every day of his life. He said it had also deeply affected his family.
Defence counsel Tom Creed SC said his client had been on antidepressant medication that night following a suicide attempt a day earlier and he combined alcohol with medication.
Mr Creed SC said there were extensive character references that painted a different picture of the defendant, including one that stated that he was consumed by guilt and was deeply remorseful.
And as a gesture of that remorse, McLoughlin had brought €10,000 compensation to the court, said Mr Creed as he pleaded for leniency, pointing out that his client had no previous convictions.
Judge Dunphy said that this was “not a one-punch incident” as can often be the case in late-night assaults but rather a sustained attack that merited a headline sentence of 10 years.
However, he had to take into account mitigating factors including his guilty plea, his remorse and the fact that he had no previous convictions and had not come to garda attention since the incident.
He also noted a probation report indicated he was unlikely to reoffend so he reduced the sentence to 6½ years and suspended the final 2½ years as an incentive to rehabilitation.
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