A CONVICTED ROBBER has been jailed after he admitted carrying out an unprovoked late night assault on two Louth brothers while on bail.
Dublin man Michael Coleman (34) called one of the men a “culchie” and began punching him before punching and kicking his brother while he was on the ground.
Coleman of Captains Road, Crumlin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assaulting Christopher and Joseph Lennon, causing them harm, at Camden Street, Dublin on June 26, 2014.
Judge Martin Nolan imposed a 18 month custodial sentence which will begin when the jail term he is currently serving ends.
He was jailed for five years last April for a robbery at a Lidl shop in Rathfarnham and was on bail for this when he assaulted the brothers.
‘What are you looking at, you culchie?’
Garda Richard Mostyn told Martina Baxter BL, prosecuting, that the two victims had been drinking in the nearby Flannery’s pub and decided to get a taxi home. They approached Coleman and asked him for directions to a taxi rank.
Coleman asked Christopher Lennon: “What are you looking at, you culchie?” He then punched the victim in the face. In the meantime another man attacked Joseph Lennon.
Coleman joined in on this other attack. The second victim was punched and kicked while he was on the ground and lost consciousness.
The brothers went to a hospital in Newry, Co Armagh the next day and Joseph Lennon was found to have his jaw badly broken on both sides. He later had two metal plates inserted into his jaw.
The court heard he still can’t open his mouth the full way. He suffered flashbacks of the incident.
Coleman’s 25 previous convictions include robbery and possession of firearms in suspicious circumstances.
The garda agreed with Marc Thompson BL, defending, that Coleman was co-operative and is “an affable” person when sober.
He accepted Coleman had been trying to address his drug problem when he was arrested for the assault at a rehabilitation centre. Counsel asked Judge Nolan to take into consideration his client’s early guilty plea.
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