Father and son fined for clamper assaults

A father and son who were involved in an incident where a car clamper had his hand fractured near their place of business were both convicted and fined yesterday.

John O’Brien, aged 62, and Jason O’Brien, aged 26, of Clynoe, Ballycurreen, Airport Rd, Cork, were each fined €1,500 for assault causing harm to Wieslaw Barczak, at Tramore Rd commercial park on Jun 12, 2012. Both defendants pleaded guilty to the assault halfway through their trial at Cork District Court yesterday.

John O’Brien denied a second count of making a false report against Mr Barczak. O’Brien told gardaí he was knocked to the ground by the clamper during another incident which was fully covered by CCTV. It appeared to show O’Brien falling down without any contact between the parties.

After viewing the CCTV footage, Judge Olann Kelleher asked John O’Brien if he was serious about maintaining his claim that he was struck. The judge asked him if he wanted to view the CCTV footage again after it had been played a number of times. The judge said: “I would be embarrassed if it were me.”

The judge said he had absolutely no hesitation in convicting John O’Brien for making a false report against the injured party, Mr Barczak. He fined him €750 for making the false report.

Turning to the assaults, where John O’Brien moved the car as Mr Barczak was clamping it and Jason O’Brien caught the injured party by the hand, Judge Kelleher said: “These O’Brien people take the law into their own hands. People might have views of clampers but these people think they are above the law. This could have ended up in a very serious assault.”

As it was, Mr Barczak, an employee of a traffic management company employed by the owners of the Tramore Rd commercial park, suffered a fracture to his hand and had the fracture in plaster for nine weeks.

The judge bound both father and son to the peace for the next 12 months and ordered them to pay €150 each towards the injured party’s expenses in coming to court.

Joseph Cuddigan, defending, said the defendants were going through the proper civil court proceedings to address their concerns about parking and clamping outside their motor business in the commercial park.

Mr Cuddigan said: “Three serious criminal matters have to be acknowledged [the assault by both men and the false claim by John O’Brien]. I would ask you to view it in the context of heightened emotions which prevailed in Tramore Rd commercial park. They felt their way of making a living was being unfairly targeted — people coming to view cars would have their cars clamped.

“The assault had serious implications for the injured party but it was a matter of reckless behaviour. It certainly was not intentional from their point of view.”