A Co Limerick publican was caught by the throat, pushed over a toilet and assaulted, a court was told yesterday.
A woman was imprisoned for five months at Kilmallock Court after what Judge Mary O'Halloran described as a "vicious attack".
Nora O'Donnell (20) of Nutgrove, Ballindangan, Mitchelstown, Co Cork, was convicted of assaulting Ms Pauline Hayes at her licensed premises in Main Street, Kilfinane, on August 21st.
Her father, James O'Donnell (45), of the same address, unemployed and with a family of 14 children, received a two-month prison sentence when he was convicted of using threatening, abusive, insulting words and behaviour on the same occasion. Recognisances were fixed in the event of an appeal in both cases.
Judge O'Halloran said: "A clear signal must go out from this court that this type of conduct is unacceptable and it won't be tolerated. This was a vicious attack on a licensed holder of a property."
Ms Hayes said that on Saturday, August 21st, at about 5.40 p.m., she returned to the pub with her husband, Stephen, and found three people in the bar -
James O'Donnell, his daughter, Nora and a son. She greeted them and James O'Donnell, who had been in the premises before, later asked her to turn off the jukebox, because he said it was too loud. She said that she could not because other customers had paid to play it.
He started cursing and said he could drink in any other pub in the town. Ms Hayes was told by him: "You are very f..... awkward, you won't turn off the jukebox". He later asked her to get 20 cigarettes out of the lounge and handed her a £5 note for change. The barman, Mr Alan O'Brien, told Ms Hayes that the defendant had just threatened him and she asked him to leave the premises.
His daughter, Nora, moved out towards the toilets and she followed her. The witness asked her to leave the premises and said that she did not want any trouble. "As I was speaking, she was backing me into the toilets and she caught me by the throat. I was pushed back over a toilet in a cubicle and she started punching me in the face and all into the left eye area. I kept screaming for my husband for help. I was very dazed and very shocked."
Ms Hayes was treated in Limerick Regional Hospital and was still attending an eye specialist. She also has a hairline crack on her cheekbone. Cross-examined, she denied that she provoked Nora O'Donnell and said that she had asked her and her father to leave the premises on three occasions.
Mr O'Brien said that James O'Donnell had four pints of Guinness and his daughter had three cans of cider. Mr Stephen Hayes said he was upstairs when he heard screaming and came down and found his wife crying and shouting in the toilets, "Please save me". He said Nora O'Donnell was "belting" his wife and she was "covered in blood". He pulled her away.
Nora O'Donnell said she regretted that anyone was injured and she was never in the bar before. Her father had asked the barman to "get fags" and he had replied: "Get them your f...... self. She claimed she never heard a publican asking her father or her to leave the premises. She went into the toilet and Ms Hayes followed her and told her to "get the f... out of her pub". "She pushed me and pointed her finger at my face and we both started fighting."
Mr Brian O'Callaghan, solicitor for the O'Donnells, suggested that Ms Hayes brought part of the assault on herself, but the response of his client was over the top.