Man to be sentenced for assault that left boy brain-damaged
An 18-year-old man will be sentenced next month for leaving a schoolboy with permanent brain damage after beating him unconscious in an unprovoked attack.
The 18-year-old accused inflicted 65 kicks and stamps to his 16-year-old victim’s head, along with two stamps to his chest and 26 punches.
The accused had originally been charged with attempting to murder his victim on July 23, 2010 as he (the victim) waited for his mother at a service station.
However, a plea to intentionally causing his victim serious harm was accepted in the Central Criminal Court.
There were audible gasps in court this morning as CCTV footage of the almost five-minute, frenzied attack was shown, after a warning that its viewing was not for the faint-hearted.
The footage showed the victim sitting on a windowsill when he was attacked by the accused. It showed the accused repeatedly punching, kicking and stamping on the young boy’s head as he lay motionless on the ground.
The assault continued for more than four minutes after the victim stopped moving.
The accused then left his victim’s body lying in a pool of blood on the forecourt. A car was seen driving by his body before the accused returned a few moments later to stamp, kick and punch the unconscious teenager again.
Some 11 eyewitnesses observed the attack, but it was not until this point that a man described in court as "a good Samaritan" was seen intervening and moving the criminal away.
A detective garda told the court that the victim was taken to hospital, where he had a Glasgow Coma Scale of seven out of 15. He was kept on life support for eight days before being transferred to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire.
A medical report was handed in to court, which outlined that the teenager suffers from weakness on his right side, deafness, as well as memory and speech problems as a result of the attack. The court heard that he also got pneumonia during his early days in hospital.
A garda detective told the court that the accused was in the care of the HSE when he carried out the attack. He was being transferred back to his accommodation by two female social care workers when he demanded the driver stop the car at the service station.
The detective said the accused had wrongly thought that his victim was somehow involved in having his friend imprisoned for life.
“I beat the head off him. I danced over his head,” he said when arrested.
The detective said he had eight previous convictions, seven for assault.
The victim's mother stepped into the witness box to read out a victim impact statement on behalf of her husband and family.
She said their son was a normal 16-year-old, who was enjoying his summer holidays, swimming and playing rugby and soccer, after achieving seven honours in his Junior Cert. They were proud of him, she said.
She said the service station was her usual place to collect him because she felt he wouldn’t be alone there and it would be safe. However she was greeted by flashing blue lights and a body lying on the ground when she arrived to collect him that evening.
To her horror, the body was her son's. She recognised him from his clothes.
“He had been battered so badly and his head was swollen and black,” she said. “It’s a vision I’ll take with me to my grave.”
She said she and her family did not know if their child was alive or dead as they followed his ambulance to the hospital. They learned of the fracture to his skull and eye socket, as well as the bleed to his brain, which affects the entire right side of his body.
“He now has slurred speech and his handwriting is three times slower than average,” she said.
She explained that his short-term memory has been affected, which makes education difficult, as do his problems with concentration and cognitive fatigue.
He also has problems with balance and coordination, which make playing sports difficult and will make finding a physical job or trade less easy.
She said their home of 16 years was not suitable for their son’s new needs, so they had to move.
She also had to give up her job in order to move to Dun Laoghaire while he was in hospital there. and both of these decisions meant that their savings had now been replaced by loans.
She said that worst of all for her son was the stigma of having a brain injury, but she said he could no longer be left alone because he forgets to do simple but important things such as turning off the cooker or locking the door.
Mr Justice Paul Carney remanded the accused in custody for sentencing next month.
