Teen who assaulted schoolboy gets six months

A teenager who beat a schoolboy with a metal bar described as an "appalling instrument" has been sentenced to six months detention for possession of the weapon.

Gerard Quigley (aged 18) of Belclare Park, Ballymun, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of a spring-loaded bar, intending to injure another, at Ballymun Comprehensive School on September 21, 2004.

Judge Katherine Delahunt suspended the final three months of the sentence and said Quigley carried out an assault in a school with children around and "could have killed a man".

A prosecution regarding the assault of the schoolboy did not go ahead as the injured party refused to co-operate with gardaí.

Sergeant Bernard Young told Mr Bernard Condon BL, prosecuting, that Quigley, who was not a pupil of the school, was seen hanging around outside the Comprehensive school with two other males.

The principal of the neighbouring gaelscoil asked the teenagers to move away but they refused and laughed at him.

Quigley and his cohorts went into the yard of Ballymun Comprehensive as pupils came out at the break time. Quigley produced a spring loaded metal bar and one of his accomplices took a table leg from under his coat. They then attacked a male pupil with the weapons.

Sgt Young said a teacher grabbed Quigley and held him until gardaí arrived. Quigley told the teacher to let him go or he would kill him.

He told gardaí he had a disagreement with the schoolboy over a girl and agreed he hit him six or seven times with the bar but claimed he had been alone at the time of the assault.

Sgt Young said Quigley had eight convictions in the Children Court at the time of this offence and had since accumulated a further 11 for crimes including, theft, burglary, possession of knives and criminal damage.

Sgt Young agreed with Ms Sandra Frayne BL, defending, that Quigley claimed the schoolboy had assaulted him with a pool cue around a month earlier but made no complaint to gardaí.

Judge Delahunt refused Ms Frayne’s request to consider a non custodial sentence saying Quigley had "graduated to the big time" and had held the services of the State in "complete contempt" by continuing to offend. She described the weapon as "an appalling instrument likely to cause serious damage to anybody".