The father of murdered two-year-old toddler, Santina Cawley, has been given a 10 month suspended sentence after he pleaded guilty to assaulting and causing harm to the woman who was last month convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his daughter.
Michael Cawley (37) with an address at Leeside Apartments, Bachelors Quay, Cork, pleaded guilty earlier this month to assault causing harm to Karen Harrington (38) at Merchants Quay, Cork on January 26th, 2021, contrary to Section 3 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act.
Sgt Pat Lyons outlined the facts of the case in Cork District Court on Wednesday. He explained how Cawley had spotted Harrington boarding a bus at Merchant’s Quay in Cork and went on board the bus, caught her and threw her to the ground before kicking her several times in the chest and stomach.
He said the entire incident on board the bus was captured on CCTV. Ms Harrington was medically examined a few days later and was found to have suffered soft tissue injuries to her chest from the repeated kicking that she had received from Cawley.
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Sgt Lyons said that Cawley proceeded after the assault to the Bridewell Garda Station in Cork where he informed them of what he had done and made himself available to officers. He said Cawley had co-operated fully with the investigation into the assault.
Sgt Lyons told the court that Cawley had four previous assaults including two for assault causing harm from Co Clare in 2004 for which he received two concurrent three years sentences while he also had a conviction for possession of a weapon and a 2018 conviction for breach of a court order.
Defence solicitor Frank Buttimer said that his client fully accepted responsibility for the assault and while he was not seeking to understate the seriousness of the offence, there was a context in that he had previously been in a relationship with Harrington, but that had ended in July 2019.
He said that Harrington out on bail at the time of the assault, charged with the murder of his client’s two-year-old child, Santina Cawley, and she was subsequently convicted of that murder following a four-week long trial in Cork just last month.
“The injured party in this case was out on bail at the time of this incident – the proceedings against her were scheduled to go ahead around this time but had to be adjourned due to Covid-19 when my client had an entirely random encounter with her on Merchant’s Quay,” Mr Buttimer said.
“My client saw the injured party get on a bus, he got on, approached her and the incident happened as described – he assaulted her in a momentary loss of composure and reason, and it was as described, lasting approximately 10 to 15 seconds,” he added.
Mr Buttimer confirmed that Cawley immediately contacted the gardaí and made himself available to them for interview, but in the time since then there were no further incidents with Harrington who was out on bail until her trial for murder began in April 2022.
His client was under enormous strain at the time, suffering not only the death of his child but also facing into an impending murder trial where he knew he would have to testify given he knew Harrington was pleading not guilty even though he could not understand why she was doing so.
Mr Buttimer said his client was not seeking to mitigate the seriousness of his assault on Ms Harrington, and he fully accepted his responsibility for the offence, but he said that “there may be some degree of understanding as to why he did, what he did.”
“He accepts that the loss of reason and that he should have trusted the legal process rather than take the law into his own hands,” Mr Buttimer said, adding that his client was currently going for counselling and was under the care of both a counsellor and a consultant psychiatrist.
Sgt Lyons said the state was submitting a victim impact statement on behalf of Harrington, but he said that it strayed well beyond outlining the impact of Cawley’s assault on her and he was not sure as to the relevance of much of what Ms Harrington spoke about.
Mr Buttimer said that he had very strong concerns about Harrington’s Victim Impact Statement, and he submitted that it was not a proper such statement as it dealt with matters which were not relevant to the purpose of a Victim Impact Statement which is – the effect of a crime on a victim.
Judge Olan Kelleher rose to read the victim impact statement and when he returned, he said that the purpose of a victim impact statement was to detail the effect of a crime on a victim but Ms Harrington had devoted much of her statement to matters that did not concern him in this case.
“There are matters in Ms Harrington’s victim impact statement that are not relevant to this case – I can’t take them into account, and I won’t take them into account,” Judge Kelleher said before acknowledging Cawley’s guilty plea which spared his victim the trauma of having to testify.
However, he said it was clear from Cawley’s previous convictions including the assaults from 2004 when he received a three-year sentence, that he was a violent man with a history of violence and that was something that concerned him given the attack on Harrington.
“This is a very serious charge – he attacked a woman on the bus, knocked her to the ground and kicked her repeatedly – given his history, he is obviously a very violent man … I accept his guilty plea, but he cannot take the law into his own hands and he must pay the consequences for that.”
Judge Kelleher said he had to mark the seriousness of the charge with a custodial sentence, and he sentenced him to 10 months in jail, but he suspended the sentence in its entirety on condition that he keep the peace and be of good behaviour for a period of two years.
