A qualified plasterer, who put a female Garda in a headlock and assaulted two male Gardaí, having been “caught up in the frenzy” of the Dublin riots, has been jailed.
The Circuit Criminal Court heard that the accused had been drinking at the time, that he has epilepsy, and that he is “going blind” due to a rare eye condition.
Garda Tom McAvoy, of Store Street Garda Station gave evidence of how Don Sheridan (50) of Whitestown Park in Blanchardstown, made contact with Gardaí after recognising himself in a series of photos of persons of interest released after almost a year of trawling through CCTV.
The accused pleaded guilty to assaulting Detective Garda Tracy O’Reilly by putting her in a “headlock” and assaulting Garda Robert Brennan, and Garda Stewart Morrin on the 23rd of November, 2023.
The court heard how the incident took place after “an anti immigration protestors” gathered at the top of O’Connell Street after three children and a care worker were stabbed at a school in the area.
Prosecuting counsel, Emer Ní Chúagáin BL told Judge Martin Nolan that “tensions were extremely high” as Gardaí were “holding a line” by the “crime scene”.
Over the course of the evening, 600 Gardaí were deployed, 500 protestors were gathered in the area, 3 buses “were destroyed by fire”, others were damaged, a Luas was “destroyed” and a number of Garda vehicle were damaged or destroyed.
13 Gardaí and 5 civilians were also assaulted, the court heard.
A video taken on the evening from Parnell Street showed the accused saying, in relation to the Garda line, “We had a chance to take them from the back.”
Sheridan was also captured on CCTV attempting to break into a POU vehicle, attempting to strike an officer with a glass bottle, and being in the midst of a group who were firing bricks, fireworks, and glass bottles at Gardaí.
Det Garda O’Reilly said she saw the accused throwing a gas canister at a POU vehicle, which was later damaged by a group of protestors, but was still operational. Over €8,000 was required to repair the vehicle, although it could not be determined how much damage Sheridan’s individual actions had caused.
When O’Reilly tried to retrieve the canister, Sheridan “approached her and assaulted her by placing her into a headlock,” Ms. Ní Chúagáin said.
The court heard how Garda O’Reilly, seeing how much she and her colleagues were outnumbered, tried to radio for help on numerous occasions, to no avail.
Noticing that Garda Morrin was isolated among the protestors and becoming “afraid for his safety”, she tried to shout to him to retreat, but said that the nine of the crowd was so loud that she believed he could not hear her. She said that “from the moment she arrived” on the scene she was being verbally “abused” and that the protestors were “blaming” the Gardaí for what had happened to the children.
When trying to take the gas canister from the accused, she became involved in a “tussle” with him before Garda Morrin came to her assistance.
O’Reilly described having pepper spray on her person, but deciding it would be counter productive to deploy it due to being so heavily outnumbered.
When Garda Morrin “grabbed” the accused and “pulled” him off her, she said that he became “furious” when he realised that Morrin was an officer. Sheridan then threw a punch, which did not land, at his face before a third party ran up, punched him, and then disappeared back into the crowd.
She said bags of rubbish, glass bottles, and bricks were being thrown at her and her colleagues, while the crowd were “shouting and jeering” as they chased Garda Morrin having “focused on him” and being told to “get him” by certain individuals.
At the point, there were shouts of “attack, attack, attack,” being aimed at Garda Morrin who had to “in fear for his life” after he was “encircled” by the crowd.
Ní Chúagáin described how Morrin was able to outrun most of the crowd on foot, but that 2-3 others on electric scooters kept apace with him as he ran towards the Gardiner Street area.
At this point, one of the men on the scooters said, “Leave him alone, fuck off now” before Morrin was able to make an escape back towards Fitzgibbon Street.
Sheridan was also charged with assaulting Garda Robert Brennan, who was in riot gear on the night in question, by trying to hit him over the head with a glass bottle near the corner of Murray’s Pub on O’Connell Street.
CCTV footage showed Sheridan refusing to leave the area before Brennan “checks him with a shield”, after which, “feigning to walk away”, the accused “removes a glass bottle from his jacket and tries to strike him over the head with it,” while in the midst of other protests, Ní Chúagáin said.
Sheridan hands himself in.
Garda McAvoy agreed with counsel that Sheridan was not motivated by any particular “political” or “ideological” reason to participate in the riots, but that he was “caught up in the frenzy” and had been drinking in a pub before learning what had happened with regard to the injured children.
When he was interviewed he said he was “protesting because foreigners, they are carrying blades”, and “what happened to that young kid,” in reference to a 5-year-old girl who was seriously injured that day.
He expressed remorse for his actions saying he had “made a thick out of himself”.
Defending counsel, Michael Lynn SC argued that his client had given no trouble to Gardaí after handing himself in, and that he did not request the presence of a solicitor when being interviewed.
Mr. Lynn argued that his client had a long work history as a plasterer, but had developed epileptic fits in 2013, which caused him tools his job, and eventually become homeless “for a number of years”.
Lynn said that if the accused should be jailed, he would lose the housing he had gained with the assistance of Cross Care.
Sheridan also has an alcohol addiction, and a “rare genetic eye condition” and is “going blind”, Mr. Lynn argued.
His client wants to“publicly say today [that] he’s profoundly ashamed of what he did,” he said.
Garda McAvoy accepted that the accused’s expressions of remorse were genuine.
Sentence
Having considered the matter over lunch, Judge Nolan said that the accused didn’t seem to have “an active bias towards foreign people” but that he had been an “active participant” in the rioting which caused “much criminal damage and destruction,”.
The court commented on how Garda Morrin “had a very hard time” after the “mob picked on him” causing him to “run for his very life”, and that Garda O’Reilly “was grabbed by this man”.
Judge Nolan said that the accused had used a glass bottle to assault Garda Brennan during a “huge amount of chaos”, and that he “had his own reasons for behaving the way he did. ”
Noting the medial conditions highlighted by Mr. Lynn, the court said that “none of these problems stopped him” on the night and that, “for some reason he got a burst of energy” which he “used to attack” Gardaí.
Judge Nolan set a headline sentence of six years, but, having regard to the mitigating factors of the early guilty plea, the “very slight” record of the accused, his age and medical circumstance, passed a final sentence of two-and-a-half years from today.
“If he was a healthier man, it would be much longer,” the court said, adding, “he doesn’t look like a rioter”, and “he doesn’t have the age profile”.