Woman jailed for 'mistaken identity' stabbing

A part-time childcare worker received a two-year sentence with 18 months suspended for stabbing a parked motorist in a case of mistaken identity.

Georgina Crowley (aged 26) of Turvey Avenue, Inchicore claimed she thought the woman parked along Cunnigham Road in the early hours of September 29, 2007 was another woman she believed had involved her close cousin in drugs.

The injured party told gardaí that Crowley stabbed her left shoulder with a knife, when she got out of her car to persuade her she had the wrong person.

Crowley, a mother-of-three, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assault causing harm. She had no previous convictions.

Garda Grainne McAuley told prosecution counsel, Ms Lisa Dempsey BL, that the injured party had been travelling home after dropping her mother to her Glasnevin house from the airport, when she stopped at the road side around 2.30am to change a CD.

She looked up to see Crowley approach her window in a coat and pyjama bottoms and scream: “Where’s my brother? You have my brother out smoking here.”

Crowley banged on the car bonnet as the woman got out and tried to convince her she didn’t know her cousin, whom she referred to as a brother.

Gda McAuley said a man approached the two women and told Crowley she had the wrong woman but Crowley held onto her victim, who said she then felt a sharp pain in her left shoulder, by the hair.

The man pulled Crowley off the woman and ran with her into a nearby apartment complex, while the woman shouted out that she would call the gardaí.

The injured woman flagged down a passing patrol car and told gardaí what had happened but declined to go to the hospital that night, saying she just “wanted to go home”.

Gda McAuley told Ms Dempsey that the injured party went to a doctor a few days later and got treated for an infection which developed on her neck wound.

The injured party identified her assailant in an identity parade, but Crowley denied in all her garda interviews that she stabbed the woman..

Gda McAuley agreed with defence counsel, Mr William Galvin BL, that Crowley is a good mother to her three children and keeps a good house.

Mr Galvin offered his client’s “heartfelt apologies” to the injured party, describing the incident as “an extreme over-reaction that was fundamentally out of character".

Judge Katherine Delahunt said she understood Crowley’s conviction would have a serious effect on her young family and suspended the final 18 months of the sentence.