Dundalk court: Suspended sentence for affray in local hotel
A man who was put out of a local hotel after he was involved in an affray, was captured on a security guard’s body camera, saying he’d return to ‘shoot the place up’, Dundalk Circuit Court last week.
James McCann (34) with an address at Canal Road, Dromiskin pleaded guilty to a charge of affray in April, on the day his case was listed for trial.
The court was told the defendant had been involved in a scuffle with another man, who struck him first.
He hit him back and grabbed a pint glass off the bar and fired it at the man – hitting him on the side of the head.
Security staff and two customers stepped in to break up the row.
He threw a couple of other pint glasses and a table was pushed over, before he was put out of the premises.
He subsequently re-entered and struck a man and grabbed a pint from a table and threw it against the bar.
The court heard the father of two, who had no previous convictions, made a threat to return to “shoot the place up”.
He was subsequently admitted to a psychiatric unit and on his release was an inpatient at Smarmore Clinic, where he was diagnosed with alcohol and cocaine dependency and benzodiazepine misuse.
Judge Dara Hayes imposed a two and a half year sentence, which he suspended in full on the accused entering a bond to be of good behaviour and giving an undertaking not to consume alcohol or any illicit substance during that period.