Radio DJ found not guilty of assault and car damage

A RADIO broadcaster has been acquitted of assault and criminal damage charges relating to a dispute over alleged damage to a car.

Tipp FM presenter Norman Morrissey, aged 51, of Ballinlough West, Bansha, Co Tipperary, had denied charges that he assaulted a young woman causing her harm, and inflicted criminal damage on a van on Halloween night, 2007.

A brother of country music star Louise Morrissey, the accused was found not guilty on both counts yesterday by a jury after just over 40 minutes’ deliberation.

The trial at Clonmel Circuit Court heard last week that Mr Morrissey smashed two van windows with an axe and a rake-handle after a group of people arrived at his house.He was accused of assaulting a woman who was in the van at the time, Mary O’Leary, after a piece of the window-glass went into her eye, leaving her in need of surgery.

The van was being driven by a James Breen Jnr, who alleged Norman Morrissey’s son, Kevin, had egg-splattered his car and that of a friend.

Singer Louise Morrissey told the court she was living at her mother’s house in the Bansha area on October 31 of 2007 when her nephew Kevin arrived at 4pm. Kevin showed her a text sent from James Breen Jnr’s phone: “If you don’t answer your fucking phone we’ll come up and smash every window in your mother and father’s house. We know you’re at home on your own, you little wanker.”

After the jury’s verdicts, some members of Mr Morrissey’s family clapped. Judge Thomas Teehan told the jury: “I agree with you, for what it’s worth”.