Dublin man James O’Neill (75) has been jailed for 11-and-a-half years after being found guilty of viciously beating his 73-year-old neighbour with a shovel.
His victim, Patrick Hansard – now aged 78 -sustained multiple injuries including skull fractures, lacerations, haematoma, a fracture to his cervical spine and a traumatic brain injury, during the attack which took place in the early houses of the morning of the 17th of August 2019.
The Irish Times reported that Gardaí found a selfie O’Neill, of Courtney Place, Ballybough, Dublin 3, had taken of himself wearing a ‘V for Vendetta’ mask and holding a shovel before attacking the elderly man in a stairwell.
The court accepted that the mask worn by O’Neill during the assault had been purchased sometime in advance and was not purchased for the purpose of the attack.
Sentencing judge Ms. Justice Elva Duffy said that the attack was completely unprovoked noting how Mr. Hansard still suffers from the after effects.
Hansard said that prior to the attack he had enjoyed walks outside but was now unable to walk more than 400m.
The court heard that although the elderly man has made a ‘remarkable recovery’ since the attack that the effects will last with him through the rest of his days.
The elderly man said that although he had been born in 1946 and had grown up in a Dublin tenement in Gardiner Street which was considered a rough area the first violence he had experienced was at the hands of O’Neill.
The court heard that O’Neill and Hansard had exchanged words in a pub in the hours leading up to the attack and that Hansard had gone home alone after his partner who was with him at the time had stopped to talk to someone.
Sometime later she saw a man wearing a mask leave the stairwell where Mr. Hansard was attack and go into O’Neill’s house.
A headline sentence of 13 years was set but this was reduced to 11-and-half years due to mitigating factors.
O’Neill has two previous convictions, one for a public order offence and one for occasioning actual bodily harm in 1992 for which he received a suspended sentence.