A man who left his then partner “covered in blood” has been jailed for four years at the Circuit Criminal Court.
Evidence was given that Joseph Healy (48) smashed his way into an address at Gateway View, Ballymun, Dublin 9 after breaking a glass pane in a door where he proceeded to assault his then partner who was present in court.
The court heard that Healy had called to the address that same day and that the woman had left the house, made her way to Ballymun Garda Station, and sought the assistance of Gardaí who attended the home and informed the accused that he was “no longer welcome” there.
At about 6pm that evening, a Garda witness gave evidence that the woman arrived at Ballymun Garda Station “covered in blood” and said that Healy had broken into her house and assaulted her while in a state of intoxication.
She said that she had sat on her bed and attempted to ignore Healey who started to hit her and strangled her.
He threatened her that he would “cut her face off” and that he would “kill himself and take her with him,” the prosecuting counsel told the court.
The victim fell on the stairs in the midst of the assault and Healy had called her a “tramp”, the court heard.
He forced her back to a bedroom and was “punching her and slapping her” in the face at “close proximity”.
She managed to push him away from her with her foot whereupon she ran down the stairs, out of the house, and headed to the Garda station to raise the alarm before an ambulance was called and she was taken to the Mater Hospital.
At around 6:10pm Healy was arrested after being located at the same address.
The court heard he has 51 previous convictions, some of which are for “serious matters”.
Healy’s defending counsel told the court that her client has: “serious and chronic addiction issues” and that although he did not plead guilty at the earliest opportunity, his guilty plea which was entered at the setting of the trial date was a “valuable plea”.
He has been in custody since the 6th of June 2024 and had an “offence free period” from 2018 to 2023 when he was off drugs and received addiction treatment in the UK.
After coming into a considerable sum of money on the death of his mother, Healy had fallen into drugs again and ultimately spent the entirety of the money he had inherited on crack cocaine.
The court heard that Healy had inherited the sum of €135,000 which he used to purchase an apartment in Waterford before deciding to move to Spain as the cost of living is cheaper there.
He sold his apartment in Waterford which left him with €125,000 “in his pocket”, but “all of that money was spent on crack cocaine” his defence told the court.
He has a “chronic blood disorder” and has “limited time left”, she said.
Judge Martin Nolan said that the injured party was “assaulted badly” by Healy and that he had “punched her on numerous occasions” and “attempted to strangle her” during the “terrible assault”.
He said that the accused’s relevant previous convictions were “quite old” and that his guilty plea was “to his credit”.
The fact that the victim was in a relationship with the accused at the time of the assault was an “aggravating factor” where the maximum sentence was 10 years.
Calling the assault “quite a serious matter”, Judge Nolan headline sentence of 6 years for the “global misbehaviour” before passing a sentence of 4 years to be backdated to the 6th of June 2024.