A man who forced his way into a house and attacked its owner with a machete has been jailed for seven years in consecutive sentences by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Peter Kenny (22), of McCarthy Terrace, Rialto, was on bail on an armed robbery charge at the time of the attack.
He pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary at Westcourt, Basin Street, on March 31st, 2003, and to armed robbery from the Camelot Stores on Dorset Street on February 14st, 2003.
The court heard Kenny went to the house on Basin Street with another man in the evening when the family that lived there were watching television. One of the two daughters of the house had an argument with Kenny's girlfriend shortly before he went there and forced his way in.
Kenny first hit one of the two girls with the weapon, cutting her above the eye, and then attacked the girls' father when he came into the living room to find out what the commotion was about. His accomplice also joined in.
Gardaí who arrived shortly after the two men left found blood on the doorstep of the house and in the hallway, and the girls' father was leaning over the kitchen sink, covered in blood.
They followed a trail of blood leading away from the house towards a block of flats on Basin Street where the trail ended at a second floor balcony of one of the flats.
They found Kenny in the living room, with his girlfriend sitting beside him holding a tissue to his head which was bleeding from the back. The weapon which had was on the balcony.
Kenny was on bail at that time for the Camelot Stores robbery in which he was with another man and threatened to kill the shop assistant with the gun he was carrying. He and his accomplice then took €800 in cash from the tills. Gardaí seized him on Mountjoy Street when he was fleeing the scene.
Judge Desmond Hogan sentenced him to three years for the robbery and four years consecutively for the assault. He suspended the last 12 months of the sentence on account of his early plea of guilty to both offences.