Young woman guilty of bottle attack

A Lucan woman who slashed another woman’s face and breast with a broken bottle in an unprovoked attack, leaving her victim with permanent scarring, is to be sentenced next month.

Ciara Carney (aged 19) of Earlsfort Gardens, Lucan pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assault causing harm to Deena James on July, 2009 on Newcastle Road.

Garda Rory O’Sullivan told Mr James Dwyer BL, prosecuting, that the victim was socialising with her friends in Lucan on the night and on their way home to Hillcrest, they saw four girls walking towards them.

Ms James told gardaí that all she remembered was "one of them came over to me and struck me over the head".

"It felt like a punch at the start but then I was bleeding all over and realised it was a bottle she attacked me with," Ms James said in her statement.

Her friends called an ambulance and her then partner, Denis Gallagher, ran after the four girls but lost them after Carney got in the passenger seat of a stranger’s car which was waiting at traffic lights.

The driver of the car let her into the passenger seat after she had banged on the window and drove her home as he thought she was being chased.

Mr Gallagher ran back to Ms James and an ambulance was called. She was brought to James Connolly Memorial Hospital where she received emergency treatment to the eight-centimetre laceration on the side of her face and the seven-centimetre laceration on her left breast.

Carney was arrested the following day but initially only admitted she was at the scene. Later she admitted breaking the bottle over Ms James and said "I don’t know how I caused it. I was drunk really and I have a problem with drink".

Gda O’Sullivan said Carney, who has four previous convictions, asked him to tell her victim that she was "really sorry".

Mr Dwyer said Ms James is currently on anti-depressants, suffers panic attacks and has ceased working. She has since returned home to her parents in Tyrone following the attack.

Ms Marie Torrens BL, defending said the attack was "an unprovoked one" and Carney did not know her victim.

"The defendant has a chaotic background and was in quite a state on the night. She was only 17 at the time she attached her victim and she acknowledges she has a difficulty with alcohol," said Ms Torrens.

"The defendant has been diagnosed with ADHD and when she drank she ended up in verbal and physical fights but she is now availing of weekly addiction services," added Ms Torrens.

Judge Donagh McDonagh adjourned sentencing until November for an updated probation report and ordered that Carney sign on weekly at Ronanstown Garda Station and continues to remain sober and drug-free.