A 24-year-old man has been jailed for eight years for an unprovoked attack on a Kurdish-born Irish citizen which a judge said probably involved an element of racism.
Kris Collins pleaded guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to assault causing serious harm to Sherzad Ismail on Oliver Plunkett Street in Cork in the early hours of September 7th, 2014.
The assault on Mr Ismail was so serious that he suffered a bleed on his brain and his family were told by doctors he had only a 50/50 chance of survival after he underwent surgery.
Induced coma
He remained in an induced coma and spent over two weeks in hospital, but still has not been able to return to work at a Turkish barber shop where he had just got a job before the attack.
Det Garda Neil Walsh told the court how Mr Ismail and his friend, Weran Tahir, had been out socialising on Oliver Plunkett Street in Cork on the night in question.
They had just approached a young woman outside the Grafton Bar when a group of young men approached and one of them launched himself at Mr Ismail, headbutting him.
“It knocked him out cold. His friend described seeing him falling to the ground his eyes going white and lying there lifelessly,” Det Garda Walsh told the court.
A security man at The Grafton who was trained in first aid put Mr Ismail in the recovery position and he came around and was later tended inside the premises.
An ambulance was called but Mr Ismail and Mr Tahir said they would make their own way home. Mr Ismail made his way to his home on the northside of the city.
Found collapsed
Mr Ismail's wife, Christine Mullins, told how they found him collapsed and unconscious on the floor the following day and he was rushed by ambulance to Cork University Hospital.
“On arrival we were told that he only had a 50/50 chance of making it through - he had this massive bleed on the brain .... This was an extremely scary time for us,” she said.
Ms Mullins said her husband spent five days in a medically induced coma and he was released from hospital after a fortnight, but needed fulltime care from her and her daughter.
She told the court in her Victim Impact Statement that their lives had changed hugely as a result of the assault and her husband became very withdrawn and nervous.
“He often gets angry now and he feels frustrated as to why this happened to him,” said Ms Mullins, adding her husband had remained out of work since the assault.
Det Garda Walsh said Collins told them at interview that he saw two foreign guys approaching his girlfriend, and he was trying to protect her as she felt uncomfortable.
However, Det Garda Walsh said the entire incident, which lasted just five seconds, was captured on CCTV and gardaí believed the attack was not provoked in any way by Mr Ismail.
Collins apologised in court to Mr Ismail and his family. “I want to apologise to the family. I am sorry for what I did. I didn’t mean to cause him that much harm.”
Judge McDonagh noted Collins had a total of 15 previous convictions, including one from 2009 for assault causing harm where he headbutted a doorman at a Cork nightclub.
Unprovoked nature
He noted Collins’s guilty plea, which was to his credit, but there were several aggravating factors to the case including the unprovoked nature of the attack on Mr Ismail.
The CCTV footage, which was played in court, clearly showed Collins “ran straight through with a headbutt” to Mr Ismail, who had become an Irish citizen in March 2014, he said.
A headbutt was “the most cowardly blow” that could be struck as there is no warning and the victim has no chance to protect themselves and it rarely results in moderate or minor injury.
He noted Collins’s comment that he “didn’t mean to cause him that much harm” which could only be interpreted that he did intend to cause him harm when he attacked him.
He also noted Collins had told gardaí he had “noticed two foreign nationals” approach his girlfriend just moments before he launched his attack on Mr Ismail.
“It seems to me that there is a high probability that this attack had some element of racism to an unspecified degree,” said Judge McDonagh as he sentenced Collins to eight years in jail.
