Man gets four years for accidentally shooting boy
A Finglas man who accidentally shot and almost killed an eight-year-old boy when he was shooting at birds with a pellet gun has been sentenced to four years by Judge Patricia Ryan.
Stephen Fitzpatrick (aged 19) of Finglaswood Road pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to recklessly discharging a firearm at and intentional or reckless endangerment of the now 10-year-old victim at Cabra Road on April 13, 2005.
Judge Ryan took into account Fitzpatrick’s drug abuse but said the serious nature and consequences of the offence warranted a custodial sentence. She suspended the final year on strict conditions and ordered Fitzpatrick to attend a drug treatment course on his release.
She ordered at a previous hearing that €3,000, which Fitzpatrick’s father had in court for the boy’s family, be handed over to the intensive care unit at Temple Street Hospital as directed by the victim’s mother.
Detective Garda Aidan Flanagan told prosecuting counsel, Mr Patrick McGrath BL, that the young boy was playing in the garden next to Fitzpatrick’s mother’s home when he suddenly felt he couldn’t breathe and noticed there was blood squirting from the right side of his neck.
He was rushed to Temple Street Hospital where it was found he had air leaking from near his windpipe as a result of an air rifle pellet puncturing his neck and lodging in his voice box.
A medical report indicated he had narrowly escaped very serious injuries that could have killed him. It was thought at the time that his voice would be permanently impaired but he has since made a full recovery, apart from regular hiccuping episodes because of nerve damage to his larynx.
Det Gda Flanagan said Fitzpatrick admitted to accidentally shooting the boy when firing at birds on the fence of the garden in which the children were playing and suggested that a round must have ricocheted off a wall.
Fitzpatrick said he didn’t notice anyone around at the time, let alone the children. He said he bought the gun while on holiday abroad and destroyed it in a dump some days after the shooting.
"I am telling you the truth. I was shooting at two birds. It was a genuine mistake," Fitzpatrick told gardaí during interview.
Det Gda Flanagan said that boy had to undergo two hours of surgery and was treated in intensive care for five to six days before he was transferred to the high dependency unit and then on to a standard ward.
Fitzpatrick had nine previous convictions, including one for robbery for which he received a three-year suspended sentence in July 2006.
Det Gda Flanagan agreed with defence counsel, Mr Michael O’Higgins SC (with Ms Sandra Frayne BL), that the Director of Public Prosecutions had first charged him with intentionally or recklessly causing serious harm but withdrew this on the trial date and Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty to the present offence.
He accepted that Fitzpatrick had a difficult family life. His parents separated when he was five years old and his mother was left seriously disabled after her leg was amputated when she contracted an infection while holidaying abroad.
Fitzpatrick then went to live with his grandmother but he felt it difficult to live under her "old fashioned rules". He was considered as having no fixed abode at the time of his arrest.
Mr O’Higgins told Judge Ryan that the €3,000 was not to be considered compensation but more of a penalty to Fitzpatrick’s family for the trouble their son had caused.
Fitzpatrick told the court he was very sorry for the trouble he caused his victim and his family. "It was an accident. I am always thinking about it and wishing it never happened," he said.
Mr O’Higgins said Fitzpatrick had taken "an unacceptable risk" but asked Judge Ryan to consider that it was risk that had been taken by an immature 17-year-old man.
"It is an appalling thing to do other than in an open field 20 miles from Dublin," he said.
