{"id":464368,"date":"2026-05-02T04:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T04:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/464368\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T04:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T04:22:16","slug":"property-developer-jailed-for-truly-shocking-assaults-on-three-teenage-boys-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/464368\/","title":{"rendered":"Property developer jailed for \u2018truly shocking\u2019 assaults on three teenage boys \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A property developer who decided to act as \u201cjudge, jury and executioner\u201d and gave three young boys a \u201cterrible beating\u201d in a Co Sligo<\/a> warehouse has been handed a two-year prison sentence. <\/p>\n

Cathal O\u2019Connor (40) was on Friday sentenced at Sligo Circuit Criminal Court to five years in prison with the final three years suspended for six years. O\u2019Connor must also pay his three victims \u20ac35,000 each by June 30th.<\/p>\n

The father of two, of Farmleigh Manor, Sligo, pleaded guilty to three counts of assault causing harm to three 13-year-old boys at the Northwest Business Park, Collooney, on March 18th, 2024. Six other charges of false imprisonment and making threats to kill were taken into account.<\/p>\n

Judge Keenan Johnson said he had \u201cno option\u201d but to impose a custodial sentence on O\u2019Connor given the severity of the three assaults. He said aggravating factors included the \u201cextremely serious\u201d violence and threats used by O\u2019Connor; his brandishing of a saw to one boy\u2019s neck; his threat to cut off the boy\u2019s arms, legs and head which was \u201cshocking beyond belief\u201d and caused enormous distress to both him and a 13-year-old girl who was made watch; choking the boy until he blacked out and the age difference between both accused and the victims. <\/p>\n

Other factors included the \u201crepeated punching and kneeing\u201d of the three victims, the prolonged duration of the assaults over 48 minutes , and the fact that they were subjected to multiple death threats, together with efforts to intimidate them into silence. <\/p>\n

A co-accused, Simon Cavanagh (39), of Br\u00fa na hAbhainn, Collooney, was sentenced to two and a half years for two counts of falsely imprisoning the boys. The judge suspended Cavanagh\u2019s sentence in its entirety for six years. He must also pay \u20ac3,000 to each victim within a year. On a third count of false imprisonment, the judge directed he be assessed as to his suitability for community service, and if deemed suitable, serve 240 hours.<\/p>\n

Mitigating factors included the men\u2019s guilty pleas, that neither had previous convictions and both were deemed at low risk of reoffending.<\/p>\n

Several letters of testimonials were handed up for both men, including one from former Sligo\/Leitrim Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> TD and now managing director of public affairs and advocacy firm Pontis Advisory Ltd Marc MacSharry, which stated O\u2019Connor had an \u201cimpeccable record as a law-abiding citizen\u201d.<\/p>\n

MacSharry said he had known O\u2019Connor and his wider family for more than 30 years. He said he was \u201cdisappointed to learn the details of what had occurred and firmly believes the incident was completely out of character\u201d for O\u2019Connor. <\/p>\n

He said he was aware that the accused accepted the \u201cvery serious errors of judgement he made\u201d and he believes there is \u201cno chance of anything like this ever happening again.\u201d <\/p>\n

The judge noted there had been \u201ca lot of discussion recently around the furnishing of testimonials in criminal sentence hearings\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cIdeally the persons furnishing the testimonials should be available for cross examination and if this is not possible their references should be given on affidavit,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The judge added that his commentary on references was \u201cnot to be taken as a criticism of the referees in this case\u201d and said he was \u201cabsolutely satisfied that all the referees in this case … have acted with the utmost good faith.\u201d <\/p>\n

The court heard the boys had been in O\u2019Connor\u2019s property making \u201ca little house out of furniture they found in the prefab\u201d.<\/p>\n

The judge said while they shouldn\u2019t have been there, there could be \u201cabsolutely no justification for the actions of the two accused and the aggression\u201d O\u2019Connor displayed when he caught them. <\/p>\n

He said the boys were \u201cunfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time\u201d, and it seemed clear O\u2019Connor had \u201cserious anger management issues\u201d and \u201ctook the law into his own hands.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cHe clearly allowed his anger to take over and he lost all sense of reason,\u201d the judge said, adding that the numerous threats to kill and false imprisonment was \u201cdisturbing, callous, outrageous and completely unacceptable in a civilised society\u201d. <\/p>\n

Judge Johnson agreed to defer O\u2019Connor\u2019s sentence to July 1st next to allow him time to get his business affairs in order. Defence barrister Keith O\u2019Grady told the court O\u2019Connor employs 100 people. O\u2019Connor must also complete an anger management course. <\/p>\n

The judge wished the three victims and their families well and hoped they could \u201cmove on with their lives and live them to their full potential. They deserve nothing less\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Developer assaulted three boys in \u2018traumatic\u2019 Sligo business park incident, court hearsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Speaking afterwards on behalf of the boys\u2019 parents, one mother told The Irish Times<\/a> they were \u201cdelighted\u201d with the judge\u2019s decision. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe vicious nature of the crime against our children has been hard to comprehend. Nothing can compensate for the pain and trauma that our children and families have been through,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor these adults to traumatise our boys in such a manner is beyond comprehension,\u201d she added and hoped they could \u201cbe allowed heal and move on in privacy\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A property developer who decided to act as \u201cjudge, jury and executioner\u201d and gave three young boys a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,24443,18,13,14,4771,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7011,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-464368","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-circuit-court","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-fianna-fail","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-sligo","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116503074872857736","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464368","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=464368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}