Woman given suspended sentence for assaulting classmate

A Swords woman who hit an old classmate with "an object" leaving her with a 5cm wound on her face has been given a two-year suspended sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Deirdre Markham had been out celebrating her engagement when Emma Carlin (aged 28) tapped her on the shoulder and hit her with "an object" in the face above her eye. When the victim fell to the ground Carlin continued to beat her until bystanders separated them.

Carlin, a single mother of twin boys, with an address at Ridgewood Oaks, pleaded guilty to assaulting Ms Markham causing her harm at Velvet Nightclub, Swords, on August 26, 2007.

Judge Katherine Delahunt had adjourned sentencing after the initial hearing last year. She had ordered an updated probation report after she heard evidence from Garda Keith Delaney that Carlin had no previous convictions and had not come to garda attention since.

Judge Delahunt described it as "an unprovoked attack of a serious nature" and said she did not underestimate the trauma that it had caused Ms Markham.

She said that a positive report from the probation service indicated that Carlin was at a "low risk of re-offending" and did not need ongoing supervision from them.

Judge Delahunt said she was satisfied that it was "a once off incident" for Carlin and that she did not believe that the public, the accused and her dependants would benefit from her being imprisoned.

Carlin had no recollection of the night and told gardai that she had been drinking heavily even though she was on medication that didn’t allow her to take alcohol.

Ms Markham attended at accident and emergency where she received 11 stitches to the cut which stretched from her right eyebrow up into her forehead.

Gda Delaney told the court that gardaí were not able to confirm what Carlin had used as a weapon during the attack.

He told Ms Tara Burns BL, prosecuting, that Carlin was held by security at the nightclub until he arrived but she was too intoxicated to be interviewed and he sent her home.

She later came voluntarily to the station and told the gardaí that she and Ms Markham had been in school together but they had fallen out 10 years previously.

Mr Cathal McGreal BL, defending, told Judge Delahunt that his client had €5,000 to offer Ms Markham as an expression of her remorse and said that she had also written a letter of apology to the victim.

He said that Carlin accepted that what she had done was wrong and was horrified by her actions on the night. He added that she was not a violent person and that her life had been in disarray at the time.

She was three months pregnant with her now six-year-old twin boys when their father was tragically killed in a car accident.