Abuse for judge follows apology for injured garda

Moments after a Corkman apologised to a garda for knocking him down and to the people of Cork for an escapade of manic driving, he stood calmly in the dock and told the sentencing judge to "fuck off" — thereby adding two years to his sentence.

John Paul O’Driscoll, aged 27, of no fixed address, who is originally from Fairhill, had just been banned from driving for life and given a total sentence of 12 years with the last two years of it suspended.

Asked if he acknowledged himself bound to the citizens of Ireland in respect of the suspended two years, O’Driscoll replied loudly: “Fuck off. Now. There is one for you. Give me the other two years.”

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin said: “He does not want the two years suspended, I will not suspend it.”

Moments earlier at Cork Circuit Criminal Court, O’Driscoll had expressed a public apology from the witness box.

“I want to apologise,” he said. “I was drinking too much.

“I did not deliberately go for the guard, the back of the van just clipped him, it still hit him, it was a moment of madness and I apologise to the court.”

In the course of his sentencing, Judge Ó Donnabháin remarked: “I am not impressed by his apologies, they are trite.”

After the post-sentencing outburst by the accused, the judge also said: “I was probably right, his remorse was on the surface.”