Laois pair banned from Offaly except for health reasons
A couple who live in Clonaslee and Mountmellick are banned from entering Offaly apart from exceptional circumstances as a result of a ruling made at Tullamore District Court.
Helena Cawley (40), Tullamore Road, Clonaslee and Michael Cawley (40), Derrycloney, Mountmellick applied for bail conditions to be relaxed when they appeared before Judge Andrew Cody.
Ms Cawley is alleged to have assaulted Christina Doyle, causing her harm, on August 18 last at Puttaghaun, Tullamore and Mr Cawley is accused of damaging a Ford Transit belonging to Patrick Doyle on the same occasion.
Their solicitor, Donal Farrelly, told Judge Cody that a condition of their bail was that they could only enter Offaly for medical appointments and court appearances.
Mr Farrelly said this was causing the family untold difficulties because their children attended sport in Tullamore and the family attended the Catholic church weekly there.
The solicitor said the prosecution related to another family and he had been reliably informed that they no longer lived at the address they had in Offaly so there was no need for that bail condition to be retained.
Ms Cawley said two of her daughters attended the Kilcruttin training centre in Tullamore but she was based in Clonaslee.
In addition, she had to attend hospital appointments with a daughter in Mullingar and she did her shopping in Tullamore.
Garda Alan Burke said the State strongly opposed relaxing the existing bail conditions and said there already had been relaxations because the family were allowed on two foreign trips since the couple were arrested, one to Lourdes and another to Spain.
It was his understanding that the other parties were in the UK but he had not been able to contact them for about two weeks and he did not know how long they were going to stay there.
Garda Burke said the allegations in the case were extremely serious, including that weapons were used to damage a vehicle in a housing estate on a weekday morning and that a pregnant woman was badly assaulted.
Replying to Mr Farrelly, Garda Burke accepted the accused had no previous convictions and that there was no evidence of them interfering with witnesses.
Ms Cawley then said in evidence that all the family's activities centred around Tullamore and she had seven children, with one daughter and granddaughter living in Tullamore.
She had a five-month old baby at home and the two children in the training centre were getting into trouble for missing a day and sometimes herself and her husband would have difficulty picking them up.
Ms Cawley said she did not mind another condition of the bail, a 10pm curfew, but she asked that the condition requiring a three times a week signing on in the garda station in Portlaoise be changed to Tullamore once a week because it could be done the day she brought children to boxing.
Cross-examined by Sergeant James O'Sullivan, Ms Cawley said she accepted and agreed to the original bail conditions because she wanted to get home from court that day.
Sergeant O'Sullivan also told Judge Cody he believed it would be eight weeks before instructions would be received from the DPP.
Judge Cody said he would not be amending the bail conditions, with the exception of changing the garda station sign-on to once a week in Portlaoise.
However, he added that the DPP must expedite the matter and adjourned it to December 7 next for directions. He said he would consider relaxing the bail conditions on that date.