The man is to be sentenced for assaulting two gardai
A Dublin man is to be sentenced for breaking a garda's nose after going on a month-long drink and drugs “bender”.
“I didn't know what planet I was on, I was out of my head,” Andrew O'Keeffe said on his arrest a few months later.
O'Keeffe (25) admitted punching two gardaí after they had come to break up a large, disorderly crowd at Ventry Park in Cabra on May 20, 2013.
The father-of-two pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assaulting Garda Michael O'Reilly causing him harm. O'Keeffe, of Drumcliffe Road, Cabra West, Dublin 7, also admitted assaulting Gda Clare McCarthy on the same date.
The court heard that the two gardaí had been trying to disperse a group of 30 people who were drinking cans and shouting obscenities such as “garda scum”. O'Keeffe approached Gda O'Reilly very aggressively and swung his left fist, punching him square on the nose with full power.
Gda O'Reilly felt a ringing in his head and saw lights, then found himself on the ground with blood pumping from his nose.
He got up when he saw O'Keeffe punching his colleague, Gda McCarthy in the back of the head.
Sergeant Patrick McGilloway told Pieter Le Vert BL, prosecuting, that O'Keeffe then fled the scene.
Gda O'Reilly got an x-ray revealing a fractured nasal bone. In a victim impact statement read out in court, he said it had been a “frightening and traumatic” experience. He could not breathe through his nose for five months and his nose remains crooked.
He was off sick for a month and when he did return to work, he found himself approaching routine duties with apprehension.
Gda McCarthy said she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head when she was punched by O'Keeffe and had a severe headache for days. When she went back to work, she doubted her own capacity to perform her duties.
When O'Keeffe was arrested, he admitted the assaults immediately but said he didn't remember very much.
“I have a lot of problems in my personal life so I turned to drink and drugs for a month solid. I lost my temper,” he said.
O'Keeffe has 49 previous convictions, including road traffic offences, drugs, violent disorder, criminal damage and obstruction of a peace officer.
Olan Callinan BL, defending, said O'Keeffe began abusing ecstasy, cocaine and cannabis in his teens and has been in and out of custody since then. He said O'Keeffe is currently working in the bakery of Mountjoy prison and is engaging with Merchants Quay to deal with his drug addiction.
O'Keeffe took to the stand and said he wanted to “get his act together” for once and for all.
“I'm sick of being in jail. I'm a father and I need to look after my family and support them,” he said.
Judge Patricia Ryan remanded O'Keeffe in custody for sentencing on July 18. She asked for reports from the prison governor and probation services.
