A farmer who threw a bag of cow dung in the direction of politician Anne Rabbitte has escaped a jail term for the assault.
At Ennis District Court on Wednesday, Judge Alec Gabbett ordered Joseph Baldwin (39) to complete 60 hours of community service in lieu of a three-month prison sentence for his conviction.
The January 3rd, 2023 assault on the then Fianna Fáil TD, who was a minister of State but lost her Galway East Dáil seat in last month’s election, happened at a public meeting at O’Sullivan’s Hotel in Gort, Co Galway.
Ms Rabbitte did not attend Wednesday’s hearing, at which the judge imposed the sanction after describing Baldwin as “a community-spirited individual”. A probation report concluded that Baldwin, of Ballyaneen, Gort, was at a very low risk of reoffending.
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Commenting on the incident, the judge told the court that “the footage doesn’t lie” and what Baldwin did was “not acceptable”.
He said public representatives must be able to go along to similar meetings “and feel safe”. However, he said the Section 2 assault was “at the lower end” of the scale.
Baldwin’s solicitor, Daragh Hassett, said his client “was sorry for what he had done, had never set out to harm anyone and it was his way of protesting”. The incident happened at a public meeting in relation to a planned biogas plant for Gort, to which many locals were opposed.
In evidence in September, Ms Rabbitte said that before Baldwin threw the bag towards her, he stated: “‘I am not forgetting about you, there is one for you, Rabbitte’ and then he flung a bag as well.”
After the bag fell on the ground beside her, Ms Rabbitte said: “I didn’t know if the two legs were going to go from under me ... Someone picked it up and said that it was a bag of s**t.”
Ms Rabbitte added: “I wanted to scream my head off because no one said that what was happening was wrong.”
She said she distracted herself at the meeting by taking out her phone and posting on Twitter saying: “I can’t believe a bag of sh1t has been thrown at me.”
After Baldwin was convicted of the assault in October, Ms Rabbitte told reporters “Being a politician, one expects the rough and tumble of debate at all times, and what we have seen today is that the line was crossed [that night] and the judge acknowledged that the line was crossed and I am glad that this has been brought to a conclusion.”
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