Dundalk court: Jailed for punching train driver

A 23-year-old man who punched a train driver and assaulted two other members of Irish Rail staff at Clarke station after he tried to board a train without a ticket, was jailed for a total of six months at Dundalk district court last week.

Tobilobao Ogedengbe with an address at Mourne View Hall, Dublin Road, Dundalk, pleaded guilty to assaulting the driver causing him harm, and to assaulting two of his male colleagues on August 14th last and further admitted a charge of assault at Marshes Shopping Centre on July 14th and refusing to provide his name and address to a garda at Castle Road 16 days later.

Judge Eirinn McKiernan adjourned finalising the case, so she could hear from the train driver about how he had been impacted by the incident.

He told the court that the defendant said he had a knife and ‘threatened that he would stab us’ adding that he was a trained fighter.
The man said he suffered cuts to the inside and outside of his mouth and was relieved of his duties that day in Drogheda and went home.

He missed work the next day and had a sore mouth for a couple of days.

The defendant, who appeared by videolink, had 17 previous convictions, and his solicitor said his client's offending began at the end of last year, when he went off his medication for depression.

He said his client, who had anger issues, had no support in Ireland where he had been studying Computer Programming locally but that had ‘fallen by the wayside’.

His father was in Nigeria and his mother in Dubai.

The court heard he had been in custody since August 15th, when bail was refused in the district court and he did not apply for High Court bail.

While in custody he had reengaged with services and begun taking his medication again and apologised for what occurred.
Judge McKiernan said the assaults were very serious matters and couldn’t be tolerated and the train driver was carrying out his daily work.

The Judge sentenced the 23 year old to two months for the July 14th assault, and imposed a six month sentence for the assault causing harm charge at the train station, but suspended the final two months on the defendant entering a 12 month probation supervision bond.

The sentences, which were consecutive, were backdated to when he went into custody while the other charges were taken into consideration.

Judge McKiernan directed that he receive treatment and medical attention in custody and fixed recognizance in the event of an appeal being lodged.