{"id":186625,"date":"2025-11-18T06:27:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T06:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/186625\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T06:27:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T06:27:14","slug":"bus-driver-tore-hair-from-female-garda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/186625\/","title":{"rendered":"Bus driver tore hair from female Garda"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bus driving instructor who tore a clump of hair from the head of a female Garda, and \u201crushed\u201d at another female officer, causing her injury, has avoided jail.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Circuit Criminal Court heard how Stewart Kelly of Parnell Sq. Dublin 1, disembarked from a flight from London to Dublin on the 14th of October last before he became involved in an argument with airport police over where to catch a taxi.<\/p>\n

Sergeant Michael Martin of Ballymun Garda Station gave evidence in relation to the arrest of the assault who was \u201chighly intoxicated\u201d at the time.<\/p>\n

After he was arrested and conveyed to Dublin Airport Garda Station he was found to be in a \u201cdifficult psychological condition\u201d with the court hearing that he attempted to do \u201cserious\u201d harm to himself in the cell.<\/p>\n

Arresting Garda\u00ed described the accused as \u201csomewhat aggressive\u201d in custody and how he was \u201cbanging his head of the cell wall\u201d.<\/p>\n

Having discovered the accused in this state, Garda Danielle Black, who was later subjected to assault causing harm, hit the station panic alarm, but when this didn\u2019t work, shouted for help.<\/p>\n

Officers Jennifer Craven and Anthony Boyle came to her aid and the situation was diffused. The accused expressed a wish to make a phone call from his own phone, but when he was brought back to his cell he began resisting before a \u201csignificant and prolonged struggle\u201d ensued.<\/p>\n

When Garda Black got the accused back into the cell he reached out through the hatch and pulled a clump of hair out of her head, which Sergeant Martin said was a \u201csignificant clump\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The court heard that Garda Black suffered pain in her neck and back.<\/p>\n

The accused also assaulted Garda Craven by throwing his head back in order to strike her in the course of trying to remove his cuffs. He also showed her into a wall causing her to hit her ribs, left knee, and the left side of her face. After being brought to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, she was found to have suffered soft tissue injuries.<\/p>\n

Kelly\u2019s defending counsel, Keith Spencer BL told the court that his client had returned to Ireland after his mother has suffered a heart attack, and that he had consumed some alcohol while on the plane.<\/p>\n

The former bus driver turned instructor was \u201cvery emotional\u201d at the time and has experienced recent hardships such a separation from \u201chis husband\u201d in 2022, Mr. Spencer said.<\/p>\n

He had been living in London for some years and now \u201cwants to put his life back on track\u201d.<\/p>\n

He has written a letter of apology and, despite his current state of unemployment, has prepared \u20ac1,000 as a symbol of his remorse.<\/p>\n

Judge Nolan said that the accused had been intoxicated \u201cfor reasons only known to himself\u201d, and that he had attacked Garda\u00ed who were \u201ctrying to help him\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was \u201cdrunk and distressed\u201d, if not for which the court expressed doubt that the incident would have taken place.<\/p>\n

The court said that the accused did not deserve a custodial sentences before passing a suspended sentence of 18 months on condition of good behaviour, that he submit the \u20ac1,000, and enter into a bond of \u20ac100.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bus driving instructor who tore a clump of hair from the head of a female Garda, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,27,715,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-186625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-courts","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115569285216778290","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}