Boy headbutted neighbour for insulting his mother

A 15-year-old headbutted the next door neighbour because of insults to his mother and the egging of their car in a dispute which allegedly included the “murder” of a cat.

The boy denied the assault and there was a hearing of the case at the juvenile court at Cork District Court yesterday.

Judge Con O’Leary convicted the teenager of assaulting the man, who is aged around 40, and put sentencing back for a month to allow time for the preparation of a probation report.

Inspector John Deasy asked for a bail condition requiring the teenager to have no contact with the neighbour.

“Do you know what will happen if you breach that condition?” Judge O’Leary asked him.

“I will be sent to Oberstown,” he replied.

The injured party said there was a loud banging at his door before midnight on November 1, 2016, and when he went to the door in his bare feet, he was headbutted by the teenager living next door. He said he drew his own head back to avoid the assault. He said contact was made by the teenager’s head but no mark was left.

The teenager said the only contact was that their chests bumped against each other when they squared up to each other.

The boy’s mother testified: “Ever since we moved in we have had problems just with one neighbour. Our cat was murdered, our dog was poisoned, our house was destroyed.”

She said she called the gardaí on November 1 because a neighbour alerted her to the man next door smashing eggs on her car. She said her son had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiance disorder (ODD).

She said the neighbour called her names and her son asked him to repeat what he had said. She said the neighbour called her “a stupid bitch”.

Judge O’Leary questioned the young man about calling in to the neighbour’s house at 11.45pm for a conversation and said it did not make sense. The judge said: “If you get someone to repeat an insult the normal implication is that there will be consequences if he does.”

Judge O’Leary said it did not make sense for the defendant to say that when the insult was allegedly repeated then the teenager with ODD would calmly walk home without doing anything.

He convicted the teenager, who was 15 at the time and is now 16, of assault.