A Dublin teenager who launched an unprovoked attack on a young man he had never met has been sentenced to five and a half years in prison.
Luke Dunne (21) of Clonsilla, Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Court to assault causing serious harm at Fortlawn Park, Blanchardstown on June 9th, 2012.
The court heard that Joseph Nolan (24) suffered a life-threatening skull fracture and a clot in his brain when he was assaulted by Dunne and a gang of men in a random attack following a house party.
Mr Nolan was left lying on the ground unconscious with his left ear almost torn in two.
Judge Mary Ellen Ring suspended the final 12 months of the sentence saying that Dunne’s admissions on arrest meant that at least one person had been prosecuted for the attack.
She said Dunne, who is the only person to have admitted the crime and has no previous convictions, was being given “greater than normal credit” to encourage such future co-operation.
She said the admissions relieved Mr Nolan of the extra trauma of having to come to court.
In a victim impact report read out on his behalf, Mr Nolan said every aspect of his life has been affected by the assault. He suffers palsy and nerve damage in the left side of his face and has had severe loss of hearing in one ear, meaning he can no longer work as a DJ.
Mr Nolan said he didn’t leave home for five months after he was attacked and found it difficult to return to work.
The court heard that Dunne kicked and stamped Mr Nolan repeatedly in the face and body as he lay on the ground. He also punched him at least 10 times in the face.
Dunne admitted his role to gardaí after the assault and said he didn’t know why he attacked Mr Nolan.
“I got into a rage and just concentrated on my target and blanked everything and everyone else out,” he said.
Garda Pamela Leyden told the court that the victim had been sitting in his car talking with some friends shortly after leaving a party at 6am.
A group of four or five youths approached them and one of them tried to open the door, but Mr Nolan locked the car doors. He tried to reverse but two of the men blocked the passage, while another threw a bottle smashing the driver’s window and hitting his face.
Mr Nolan got out of the car and was pursued by the men who attacked him. He blacked out during the incident and woke up in a garden with an ambulance beside him.
Caroline Biggs, defending, said her client had immediately accepted his involvement and named two others involved, one of whom was stabbed to death nine days later.
She said Dunne was extremely remorseful, shocked, disgusted and ashamed of his own behaviour. “I’m so sorry, I wish I could turn time back,” he told gardaí.
Dunne had been addicted to “everything from hash, to benzos, to crack cocaine” but was now drug-free and engaging in counselling.
The court heard that Dunne’s upbringing was a “catalogue of misery” where his job as a child was to throw needles and dirty spoons over the wall of the Ballymun flats for his drug addict mother, who died prematurely from a bad batch of heroin.
A drugs counsellor said Dunne was the youngest ever graduate from their Rehab programme and had worked hard to turn his life around.