Dundalk court: Suspended sentence for affray in local hotel

A man who was put out of a local hotel after he was involved in an affray, was captured on a security guard’s body camera, saying he’d return to ‘shoot the place up’, Dundalk Circuit Court last week.

James McCann (34)  with an address at Canal Road, Dromiskin pleaded guilty to a charge of affray in April, on the day his case was listed for trial.

The court was told the defendant had been involved in a scuffle with another man, who struck him first.

He hit him back and grabbed a pint glass off the bar and fired it at the man – hitting him on the side of the head.

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Security staff and two customers stepped in to break up the row.

He threw a couple of other pint glasses and a table was pushed over, before he was put out of the premises.

He subsequently re-entered and struck a man and grabbed a pint from a table and threw it against the bar.

The court heard the father of two, who had no previous convictions, made a threat to return to “shoot the place up”.

He was subsequently admitted to a psychiatric unit and on his release was an inpatient at Smarmore Clinic, where he was diagnosed with alcohol and cocaine dependency and benzodiazepine misuse.

Judge Dara Hayes imposed a two and a half year sentence, which he suspended in full on the accused entering a bond to be of good behaviour and giving an undertaking not to consume alcohol or any illicit substance during that period.