Family left terrorised after gang attacked their home
By Declan Brennan
A Dublin man has received a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence for taking part in an “animalistic” attack on a family home with around ten other men.
Judge Pauline Codd said that two adults and their two young children were left terrorised when a gang of men, most of them with their faces covered with balaclavas and hoods, came to their home at Ardmore Park, Tallaght, at around midnight on October 9, 2018.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court
The group, which included Anthony McNamara (27), of the nearby Ard Mor Drive, began breaking up a wooden fence outside the house and smashing up the outside of the house. One wooden post was put through the front window of the house.
McNamara himself was armed with a machete and at one point he picked up a child’s scooter from the front garden and threw it at the female resident.
During the violent melee the woman was hit across the head but she couldn’t remember who hit her.
Detective Garda David Jennings gave evidence that when gardai arrived at the scene they found a black car damaged. Inside the house they met the adults and two children who were extremely upset and crying hysterically.
After a trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court a jury found McNamara guilty of engaging in violent disorder, producing a machete during a dispute, and criminal damage of the front window.
Keith Spencer BL, defending, said his client continues to deny he was part of the group that attacked the house.
In a victim-impact statement the woman described the attack as “animalistic” and said “all I did was stop an argument”. She said as a result of her injuries she couldn’t open her mouth for eight months.
“I have no hate for Anthony, I know he is a product of his environment,” she said. McNamara’s 18 previous convictions include drug-dealing, burglary and throwing of missiles.
Judge Codd said that this was a sinister attack with a significant degree of violence involving the use of a machete and improvised weapons. She said the violence continued even after the homeowners retreated into the house, with the attackers banging on the door.
She said this was “essentially an inter-familial dispute that got out of hand”. She noted McNamara has some drug abuse and anger issues and suspended the final six months of the sentence on condition he keep the peace.
This sentence will run concurrent to a three-year prison term imposed on him last December for a prolonged assault on a young man at Ardmore Park on August 27, 2018. Both sentences were backdated to run from October 2018.
