Neighbour saved from jail as victim's father intervenes
A man involved in kidnapping a teenage neighbour has been saved from serving his two years suspended sentence by the intervention of the victim’s father at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
James Kenny Jnr (aged 22), and his father, James Kenny Snr (aged 51) of Woodlawn Park Avenue, Firhouse were given two-year suspended sentences by Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne in November 2004 on condition that they keep the peace for three years.
They had pleaded guilty to falsely imprisoning the teenager on October 11, 2003 and assaulting him causing harm during two hours of serious abuse after wrongly accusing him of slashing their car tyres.
Kenny Jnr’s case was re-entered after he twice made threats to the victim last January, shouting at him: "Wait for it. In one more year you are dead. I will have people after you."
The victim’s father told Judge Frank O’Donnell that if Kenny Jnr wished "to terrorise and intimidate" his son he had succeeded but he and his family did not want him jailed because in their view it would only make matters worse.
The man said, however, that they wanted the court to extend its protection by extending Kenny’s bond beyond the period originally paid down by Ms Justice Dunne.
He said that though he lived in the area for 22 years he was "ashamed to say I don’t know the Kennys" but he bore no animosity towards them and while what they did against his son "was vicious, unjust and wrong" he had "no reason for revenge or anything else".
Judge O’Donnell, who noted that the Kenny’s paid €10,000 compensation to the victim, said were it not for the man’s intervention he had intended after reading the transcripts to send Kenny to jail immediately.
"The Kennys generally seem to be decent people but I don’t understand how they tolerate this young man lying around in bed all day and then causing trouble to neighbours," he said.
Judge O’Donnell said that James Kenny Senior "obviously lost it" on the occasion of the offence.
The court was told previously that the victim was totally innocent of the ‘tyre-slashing’ allegation.
Judge O’Donnell added that the alert reaction of gardaí Amanda Timmons and Nuala Burke at the time should be complimented. A witness who saw Kenny Jnr grab the victim at Firhouse Shopping Centre, viciously assault him and drag him away, made a 999 emergency call at about 11pm.
Ms Justice Dunne noted when imposing the suspended sentence that false imprisonment carried a possible life sentence and described the Kennys’ conduct as "utterly repugnant".
"You abused, dragged, assaulted, scared and injured a young boy and even if he had been the person who caused the damage there was no justification for your actions," she said.
Garda Timmons told Mr Paul Carroll BL, prosecuting, that the boy begged and cried to be released but was dragged by Kenny Jnr all the way to his house where a roaring and shouting Kenny Snr joined in assaulting him and broke the teenager’s nose with a blow during the almost two hours he was detained in the house.
Kenny Snr then contacted the Gardaí to claim the victim had volunteered to give information about the slashing of the car tyres. The victim was released by the Gardaí and treated in hospital for a list of bruises, abrasions and swellings.
