Lecturer threatened to kill man, court told

A former university lecturer was bound to the peace after a judge heard evidence he threatened to kill another man in the corridors of the same courthouse.

Dylan Evans and John Neville were both charged yesterday at Cork District Court with engaging in threatening or abusive words or behaviour at Cork District Court on Jan 18, 2011.

Judge Olann Kelleher dismissed the case against both men, which means they have no conviction against them, but he also bound them to the peace.

Mr Evans is a former behavioural science lecturer at University College Cork, where he was sanctioned in 2010 for sexual harassment of a female colleague who he showed an academic journal article about research on the sex lives of fruit bats. The High Court refused later that year to quash the college investigation’s finding of sexual harassment against him.

However, it ruled that the sanction requiring him to undergo counselling and two years of monitoring was disproportionate, as it led to him not being recommended as an established lecturer by the head of UCC’s school of medicine.

At Cork District Court yesterday, Mr Neville, aged 38, from Coolatooder, Ballinhassig, said he walked through a doorway in a corridor of the courthouse on the morning in question and Mr Evans confronted him.

“He proceeded to chest me, shoulder me, and threatened me that he was going to ‘fucking kill me’,” he told Judge Kelleher.

He said Mr Evans was in the hallway when he came out of the courtroom at lunchtime and mouthed the words that he was going to kill him, and that he reported this to a garda. Mr Neville said a third incident happened coming out of the courtroom in the afternoon and Mr Evans told him “I’m going to fucking sue you”, while at the same time putting his hand up to Mr Neville’s face.

Later, solicitor Rachel O’Toole told the court she had witnessed Mr Evans on this occasion and heard him say: “I’ll fucking see you in court.” She told the judge that, earlier that day, she had seen both men in an agitated state in the court corridor and that Mr Evans told her Mr Neville had threatened to kill him.

The court heard Mr Evans dialled 999 to report being threatened by Mr Neville, but he told the gardaí he did not need them to come and assist him when he saw Ms O’Toole in the corridor.

Mr Evans denied making any threats or aggressive behaviour and said Ms O’Toole was mistaken about what she heard or who said what that afternoon.

In his evidence for the case against Mr Neville, the 46-year-old, from Crestfield Downs, Riverstown, Glanmire, said it was he who was threatened.

“As I passed him, he turned around, looked at me and threatened me. He said ‘I’ll fucking kill you’. I was frightened, I took out my mobile phone and called the gardaí,” said Mr Evans.

After more than an hour of evidence, Judge Kelleher said both men misbehaved. He dismissed the case but bound them to the peace for a year.