Teenager Charged With Assault In Westmeath Granted Bail

Judge Bernadette Owens granted bail under strict conditions.

A teenager charged with the section 3 assault of a Longford father, who remains in critical condition in Beaumont Hospital, has been released on bail following a sitting of Mullingar District Court.

The 17-year-old male appeared before Judge Bernadette Owens this afternoon, where a contested bail hearing was held under O’Callaghan Rules and Section 2 of the Bail Act 1997. 

Detective Garda Brendan Hogan gave evidence of arrest, charge and caution and indicated that there is a “very strong possibility of further serious charges” against the accused.

The alleged assault took place on December 14, at approximately 1am on Grove Street, Mullingar. The injured party, a man in his 30s, was discovered with serious injuries at 1.10am and removed by ambulance to Midlands Regional Hospital Mullingar.

At 6am that same morning, he was transported to Beaumont Hospital where he remains in intensive care, with a severe bleed to his brain and a possible skull fracture. A catheter has been inserted into his head in an attempt to release the pressure on his brain but his condition remains critical.

The court heard from Det Gda Hogan that the injured party was out socialising with colleagues on the night in question when he came upon a group of local youths and an altercation ensued.

CCTV footage, he said, shows the males meeting in the street, before the injured party, the accused and a third party go off-screen for a period of just eight seconds. It’s within that eight-second window that the assault is suspected to have taken place.

The accused presented himself at Mullingar Garda Station and made a voluntary caution statement on the afternoon of December 14.

He and another 17-year-old male were arrested yesterday and questioned in relation to the incident. The other male, who has since been released without charge, identified the accused on CCTV footage and gave Gardaí an account of what had happened, stating that the accused had punched the man.

A large number of phones was seized during the course of the investigation and messages recovered, including two voice notes sent via Snapchat, which were played in court by Garda Gavin Conway.

“I’m after clocking a fella and he wouldn’t wake up for half an hour,” said the accused in one message sent on snapchat at 1:48am in the aftermath of the incident. He finished off the message by stating he was “pure paro” or paranoid.

In the second message, sent to another person on Snapchat at 11.20am on December 14, he stated “I’m not sure if I killed the fella or not, but even if I didn’t kill him, it’s bad bro.”

After making his voluntary statement at the Garda station, the court heard the accused immediately sent a message into a Snapchat group stating “make sure that whatever you do or say, all I said was I’ve no idea who knocked who out. Too much drink”.

The voice messages and group texts are the main basis for Garda concerns that the accused would interfere with witnesses.

Representing the accused, Andrea Callan BL stated that she “can’t get away from the evidence of the snapchat group messages”, but pointed out that there were “no instructions given” and that the messages were “more of an update”.

She stressed that Gardaí have taken multiple statements, seized phones and obtained a significant amount of evidence, so concerns that the youth would interfere with witnesses were not credible.

Prosecuting Sergeant Orla Keenan, on behalf of the state stressed that this was “a very serious assault” during which the injured party sustained “significant, serious injuries” which included a “severe bleed on his brain and a possible skull fracture”, leaving him in critical condition.

She said that this is “a very serious investigation” and there are “no bail conditions that would satisfy the state”.

Judge Owens, after considering the evidence before the court, said she was satisfied the state had met the threshold for O’Callaghan rules on the basis of the snapchat messages sent after he left the Garda Station.

She also said that the state “just about got over the line” under Section 2 of the Bail Act. However, she was “obliged to consider whether conditions would be sufficient”.

“For a juvenile, detention is the last resort,” she said, adding that she was admitting the accused to bail with a number of conditions.

The teenager, dressed in a white shirt and black trousers, became emotional in the custody box as Judge Owens warned him that, should he break one of her conditions, he would come before the court again and would “most likely” go into custody.

Bail conditions imposed included a €500 independent surety from the teen’s mother, and that he surrender his passport and not apply for a duplicate. He is also to abide by a curfew from 7pm to 6am, remain intoxicant-free and sign on at Mullingar Garda Station every Wednesday and Saturday.

Furthermore, he is not to interfere with witnesses and has been instructed to stay off all social media platforms and all electronics, save for computer use when attending his course.

He is also not permitted to own a smartphone and, should he acquire “a non-smartphone”, he is to provide the phone number of that phone to Det Gda Hogan within 24 hours of procuring it.

The accused was remanded on bail to February 6, 2025, when he will reappear before Mullingar District Court.