Of Mr Mark Kane, the victim of a quite savage assault by a gentleman by the name of Saunders, this newspaper reported recently: "Mr Patrick Marrinan, defending, said Kane had been told there was a private function in the centre and had no business writing down the number of Saunders's car."
Had he not, by God? Is this the sort of stuff which is making its appearance in court these days, that there is somehow or other mitigation for a criminal assault because the victim was making a note of a car-number? And is this the position in law, that he had no business doing that? So at what point is a member of the public supposed to make note of a licence plate if he suspects a crime is taking place? Only after the crime has actually been committed and the vehicle involved has vanished over the horizon?
Plea of guilty
It must be said now that Mark Kane, the victim of a perfectly savage assault which left him unconscious and in hospital for a week, is spot-on in his ability to detect criminality. His assailant Paul Saunders is a kickboxing champion and a drugs dealer; and drugs dealers have a particular aversion to having their car-numbers noted down: one wonders why.
In December 1995, Mark was drinking with friends in Tallaght and then went to a leisure centre for a meal. They were denied admission by members of that unspeakable tribe, bouncers. Mark Kane moved away, but a friend tried to argue his way past them. Saunders pulled up in a car, and joined the bouncers around Mark's friend. Presumably fearing for his friend's safety, Mark prudently wrote down the number of Saunder's car on his arm; Saunders, alerted by a bouncer, then followed Mark and beat him senseless. Mark was still unconscious when he was found by Detective Garda Joe McLoughlin.
Gardai at the scene were - needless to say - given no assistance by the bouncers, but Saunders later made a verbal admission, and he pleaded guilty before the Dublin Criminal Circuit Court, which was told that this fine upstanding member of the community was now serving seven years in prison for drugs-dealing. Maybe the Judge felt that Mr Marrinan had a point when he said that the victim, Mr Kane, "had no business writing down the number of Saunders's car." Mr Marrinan also declared that this fine fellow (my term, not his) Saunders, though now in jail, was willing and able to pay £2,000 in compensation. (Interesting: does the Criminal Assets Bureau know about this money?)
Mr Marrinan's pleas seem to have worked. Saunders received a one-year suspended sentence: and I'm abandoning my hobby of car-number spotting. The courts don't seem too sympathetic to us; though the same Dublin Circuit Criminal Court is apparently mightily sympathetic to Northerners, three of whom participated in an armed raid on a jewellery shop in Dublin this time last year.
Three accused
The court was told that the three, from Belfast, entered Weldon's jewellers in Dublin at 10.30 am after one of their number had rung the bell. Mr Robert Weldon noticed a gun in the pocket of one of them, Eamon O'Boyle. There are things which bring joy to a jeweller's heart, such as hungry exiled Russian dukes bearing tiaras, and there are things which do not: guns in customers' pockets belong distinctly to the latter category.
Robert sounded the alarm and ran for safety, and the three raiders were later arrested. One, Mr Boyle of the firearm, received two years' imprisonment at another court recently. I know nothing of him. Nor do I know anything of his accomplice Nicola Jordan, other than she is twenty, has no criminal record, and apparently tried to argue her companions out of the robbery, and surely deserves a second chance.
But of the third accused, George Smyth, we know a good deal. Although only 30 years of age, he has a serious record of previous convictions, having received 15 years for rape and four and a half years for causing grievous bodily harm. For this Dublin trial he wrote a letter to the judge expressing remorse for his deeds; as well he might. Who would not be almost vomiting remorse in the position he was in?
The judge ruled that because the accused had been reared in Northern Ireland, and were therefore victims of civil strife, they were entitled to a fresher look at life than others who were not subject to this kind of violence while growing up. And if it hadn't been for Smyth's letter, the Judge would have sentenced him to a long term of imprisonment.
Suspended sentence
Just as well our George Smyth wasn't dyslexic or illiterate wasn't it? And just as well most Northerners are deeply law-abiding, or Weldon's might as well mount machine guns on their counters and employ Paul Saunders and his bouncer-friends as shop-assistants. At all events, Robert Weldon should be keeping a weather eye out for George Smyth, rapist, causer of grievous bodily harm, and robber. For he walked out of court with a suspended sentence, no doubt with the judge's words ringing in his ears. "You have been given a chance."
No doubt, Judge Frank O'Donnell, the judicial gentleman who presided over the Saunders and the Smyth cases: but given a chance to do what?