A man has received a suspended sentence for his part in a bloody fistfight that ended on the bonnet of a Garda car.
John Paul Casey (30), of St Anthony's Halting Site, Tallaght, Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Central Criminal Court to affray. He received a one year suspended sentence.
Garda Brian McCormack told Marie Torrens BL, prosecuting, that he arrived at Mayfield Crescent, Tallaght at 9am on February 24th 2014 and saw the defendant and another man topless, covered in blood and engaged in a fistfight. They were surrounded by up to 30 onlookers.
The fight broke up but the men continued to taunt each other and violence resumed. The fight then moved on to the bonnet of the Garda car and pepper spray was used to separate the two men.
The other man was brought to Tallaght hospital for treatment of a head wound.
Garda McCormack agreed with defending counsel that the incident followed “a night’s drinking that got out of hand”. Counsel told Judge James O’Donohoe that Casey was on strong anti-depressant medication at the time.
Imposing a one year suspended sentence, Judge O’Donohoe said that his sentence would have been far less lenient if the fight was “one of these Traveller prize-fights” which are “becoming far too much a feature of Irish society”.