Former boxing champion sentenced to six years in jail

A former boxing champion who glassed a man in the face three years after he bit part of another man’s ear off has been sentenced to six years with the final two suspended at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Clyde Moran (aged 24) of Larkhill Road, Whitehall, pleaded guilty to assault causing serious harm to Mr Thomas Burns at Bondi Beach nightclub, Ormond Quay, Dublin on November 20, 2008.

Garda Michael Dunne told Mr Colm O Briain BL, prosecuting, that the victim was at the nightclub with his friends when at around 2am Moran walked towards him and said something to him.

Mr Burns did not hear what the accused said to him but later told gardaí he had an angry look on his face.

He felt something hard hitting him and he looked down and saw his clothes were saturated in blood.

Moran had hit him with a glass causing a laceration to Mr Burns chin which required 20 stitches and left him with permanent scarring.

Mr Sean Gillane SC, defending, said Moran had accepted responsibility for the attack but “hadn’t intended to use the glass”.

Moran accepted that he was in breach of his bond for a suspended sentence he received in 2008 for another 2005 assault.

Mr Gillane said he completed 240 hours of community service and paid €10,000 in compensation to his first victim.

In giving evidence on the 2005 assault on Paul Smith, Garda Anthony McCabe told Mr O Briain that on May 1, 2005 at Collins Avenue an altercation occurred between Moran and a group of people after a party.

“Paul Smith was knocked to the ground by the accused and received serious head wounds after he was kicked by the accused who then bit a portion of his ear off,” said Gda McCabe.

A court heard on a previous occasion that Moran was National Youth Boxing Champion at 16 years old.

Mr Gillane said Moran had a difficult background after his father Gerard Moran was murdered in 1998 and his stepfather, Jimmy Curran, was also murdered in 2005.

A short time later the Moran attacked Mr Smith, leaving him with 1.5 centimetres of his ear missing.

“He has been suffering from depression ever since,” submitted Mr Gillane.

Judge Patrick McCartan said Moran “must be sentenced for two violent and vicious assaults”.

“He has shown a deep violent streak with little or no regard to the well being of others and without any reason or warning has inflicted a serious injury with a glass on an innocent man,” he said.

“Unless he takes positive steps to deal with his anger he is likely to be back before the courts again,” remarked Judge McCartan.

Judge McCartan reactivated 12 months of the three year suspended sentence Moran received in 2008 in relation to assault causing serious harm to Mr Smith.

He sentenced him to five years to run consecutively for the assault on Mr Burns with the final two years suspended.