McDowell: DPP can appeal sentence for librarian's attackers

It is up to the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide whether to appeal three-month jail terms handed down to two men who kicked a librarian to within an inch of his life, Justice Minister Michael McDowell said today.

Tennis coach Stephen Nugent, 24, from Swords and 29-year-old university student Dermot Cooper from Stillorgan had pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to Sligo librarian Barry Duggan in Dublin's Grafton Street in April 2003.