Suspended sentence for cigarette butt assault

A middle-aged man who flicked a cigarette butt at his neighbour’s head and said, “I’m going to wreck your car tonight”, was yesterday fined and given a suspended jail sentence for his actions.

Anthony Lacey of 8 Post Office Avenue, Blackrock, Cork, denied the assault by flicking a cigarette butt. He said he might have flicked his cigarette and part might have broken accidentally.

He denied threatening to wreck the neighbour’s car.

Michael Barry testified at Cork District Court that he and his wife, Breda Hayes, had lived next door to Lacey, 50, for a few years but had moved a couple of years ago.

The couple claimed that their car was ‘keyed’ by the accused scraping a key off the side of it damaging the paint work.

It was claimed that Lacey could be seen on CCTV crouching down by the car and making some kind of hand movement that night. Lacey denied it. His solicitor, Diane Halahan, said that whatever the witnesses claimed to have seen on the CCTV, the video evidence shown in court yesterday did not bear this out.

Judge Olann Kelleher accepted that the CCTV shown in court did not enable him to reach a decision beyond reasonable doubt on the criminal damage charge so he dismissed that.

Judge Olann Kelleher imposed a four-month sentence on Lacey for assault and fined him €300 for being threatening at the time back in January 2012.