Dundalk court: Man attacked the mother of his kids during Covid pandemic

A man who attacked the mother of two of his children after she’d expressed concern about him calling unmasked and unannounced, during the early stages of the Covid Pandemic, has been jailed for 17 months at Dundalk Circuit Court.

The 37 year old pleaded guilty to assault causing harm, criminal damage, using threatening abusive or insulting behaviour and contravening a safety order at an address in Dundalk on May 16th 2020.

The court heard how the defendant wanted to see his two sons, and the victim had allowed him into the house but he became angry with her over her concerns about the Covid restrictions and she took the children upstairs to be out of the way.

The defendant started shouting at her and began to trash the house, kicking a TV, pushing the microwave off the kitchen counter and wrecking the living room.

Jailed for sexually assaulting two children in Louth

Jailed for sexually assaulting two children in Louth

He hit the woman three times with a lamp, a sweeping brush and his fists and the woman remembers being outside with her neighbours “bleeding and crying”.

A neighbour told gardai she had heard shouting and saw the defendant in an angry state outside the house, shouting that “he paid the bills” and calling the woman “a tramp”.

She said she saw him pick up a rock and seemed to be about to break a window.

She added that when the victim came out of the house she was covered in blood and crying.

The court heard how the defendant, who had 11 previous convictions, suffers from PTSD, having been shot, which resulted in an initial charge of attempted murder, and he had since been attacked with a chainsaw. 

The Defence barrister said his client had instructed him to apologise for his behaviour on the night.

He outlined how he had grown up in a chaotic broken home, witnessed and was a victim of domestic abuse and his father had normalized drug taking at a young age.

The barrister added the 37 year old has since hit rock bottom, is living in homeless accommodation, and the defendant was attending both Turas and SoSad for counselling.

Judge Dara Hayes imposed a sentence of two years and eight months for assault causing harm, which he suspended the final 15 months to encourage him to desist from offending of this nature and to continue to engage with the support services available to him.