Man grabbed garda by his testicles, Dundalk court told

A man who grabbed a garda by his testicles during the course of a public order incident, was frustrated after his father had told him to move out of his house, Dundalk district court was told last week.

Destiny Isijola (24) of Riverside Crescent, Newry Road, Dundalk was before the court charged with assault, using threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour at the same address on March 4th 2024.

The victim of the assault was initially called to the scene to help the defendant retrieve his papers from his father’s address and after some time, the garda noticed that the accused was getting agitated with his father when he could not locate some of them.

He could see the situation was escalating and sought back up and walked a short distance away.

The defendant refused to engage with the garda and refused to follow a direction to leave the area and continued to point at the address in a threatening manner before he resisted arrest.

As one hand was being handcuffed he grabbed the garda by his genitals and squeezed them tightly “causing pain”.

Court Presenter Sgt Richie Browne said that ‘hard hand tactics’ with the official baton had to be used but the defendant continued to lash out and pepper spray had to be deployed.

The court heard the defendant had no previous convictions and has not come to further garda attention.

The Defence barrister said his client extended his apologies to the members of An Garda Siochana who attended and said he should not have resisted in that manner.

He claimed that he wasn’t aware of the assault and had been responding to his father having ‘kicked him out’.

When Judge Derek Cooney asked why his client had been lashing out at the gardai, the lawyer replied that “tempers were high” due to the altercation with his father but he stressed: “He knows he should not have acted in that way. He became frustrated with them”.

However, the judge said “He brought that on himself – to grab a guard” and noted “batons would not stop him…pepper spray had to be used”.

Judge Cooney said he would give the defendant the opportunity to make a formal apology to the garda, adding, “hopefully he’s matured”.

He put back the case to April 15th for a community service report to be produced by the Probation Service and as gesture, he wanted the defendant to produce €250 for the victim adding, “I think he should put in an earnest apology to the guard”.