A RADIO presenter smashed two van windows with an axe, sending glass into a young woman’s eye, during a row over damaged cars, a court heard yesterday.
A presenter with Tipp FM, Norman Morrissey of Ballinlough West, Bansha, Co Tipperary, went on trial at Clonmel Circuit Court. He denies assault causing harm and criminal damage on October 31st, 2007.
The court heard Mr Morrissey’s son was alleged to have egg-splattered the cars of two local men the day before the alleged assault.
Alleged assault victim Mary O’Leary told the court she was in the back of a Ford Transit on the evening of October 31st when her friends, James Breen jnr and Kevin Ryan, were talking about how Mr Morrissey’s son threw eggs at their cars.
After speaking to the son and to Mr Morrissey on the phone, they went to their house. The two men and two others got out of the Ford Transit.
Ms O’Leary stayed in the back and heard Mr Morrissey coming towards it, shouting. “James [Breen] got back into the car before Norman put the axe through it,” she said. The driver’s side window and rear window were smashed. Some glass went into her eye and she had to have an operation at Waterford Regional Hospital, she said.
Cross-examining the witness, defending barrister Colman Cody put it to her Mr Breen was “screaming” on the phone.
“I’ll be at your house in 10 minutes and I’ll pull you by your fat f---king head out the door and kick you up and down,” he said, according to Mr Cody. The witness denied that when Mr Morrissey ran at the Ford Transit, Mr Breen was reversing it towards him. The trial is due to resume tomorrow.