Jailed for attack on Funky Skunk

A middle-aged man took exception to the nature of the herbal substances being sold in The Funky Skunk shop in Cork and smashed five windows using an iron bar — and then handed himself in at Bridewell Garda Station.

Christopher Boyle, aged 54, with an address at Lower Grattan Hill, Cork, pleaded guilty to causing €600 worth of criminal damage at the premises on August 25.

Boyle said through solicitor Eddie Burke that he was not saying the herbal material was illegal but he did not want it being prepared in another house. He was concerned about the material being prepared in a particular domestic setting with which he was connected.

Mr Burke asked him why he had not complained about the issue to the gardaí rather that blowing in the windows. Boyle, originally from Belfast, said at Cork District Court: “I don’t go to guards because it is against my nature.”

Inspector Ronan Kenneally said Boyle had a cross-section of convictions totalling 44 going back 30 years. Mr Burke said the accused did go about things in a very wrong way.

Judge Tim Lucey said Boyle cannot go around breaking people’s windows and he jailed him for three months. “He is taking the law into his own hands and that cannot be tolerated.”

Judge Lucey said there was absolutely no proof in what the defendant was claiming about the preparation of the herbal material in a house in Cork to be sold in the shop. He said there was no evidence of any illegality in the matter and no need for the gardaí to investigate what was simply a story being told by the accused.