Man has suspended sentence re-activated

A man who took part in a violent attack on a college student which led to the victim being thrown from a window on the top floor of a Dublin bus has had his suspended sentence re-activated.

Michael Connor (aged 20) was one of a group of four youths who were sentenced in 2009 by Judge Frank O’Donnell.

He had described the incident as an “ultimate nightmare” and said the teenagers, who are all members of the travelling community “were acting as locusts”.

The victim, Philip King, was in hospital for six days and was in a full-body brace for three weeks after he fell from the bus and landed on his back on a sheet of glass.

Connors of Rossfield Avenue, Tallaght, pleaded guilty to violent disorder at Belgard Square West on October 20, 2006.

He was sentenced to three years in prison which was suspended on the condition that he keep the peace and be of good behaviour for five years.

Connors was brought back before Judge Martin Nolan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court todayafter he came to garda attention during the suspended portion of his sentence.

The court heard that Connors has since been convicted of burglary, possesion of drugs, dangerous driving and other road traffic offences.

He has also pleaded guilty to attempted burglary in the Harold’s Cross area of Dublin on April 4, 2010.

Judge Nolan said Connors did not take advantage of the chance Judge O’Donnell had given him and re-activated the three-year term.

He also sentenced Connors to a consecutive term of two years for the attempted burglary.

He suspended this sentence in full on condition that he keep the peace and be of good behaviour for two years on his release from prison.

Sergeant Gavin Ross said that he had been off duty in April 2010 when he spotted Connors and his father, James, trying to break into a house by forcing open the front door and window.

He kept the men under surveillance and alerted his colleagues who later arrested them.

Connor’s father, James (aged 57) of Moorefield Park, Newbridge, was later jailed for four years for his role.

Garda Padraig Murphy told the court at the original sentence hearing in 2009 that Mr King had still not returned to UCD, where he was studying architecture because this was the only bus available to him to get there and he didn’t want to go on it again.

One eye witness told gardai that he saw Mr King being attacked by seven or eight youths and he managed to pull two or three off the man. He then saw one of the group perform “a push front kick” and he heard the window on the bus shatter before Mr King fell through it.

Garda Murphy accepted that it was not clear from the CCTV footage on the bus who was actually responsible for pushing Mr King through the window.

All four youths accepted that they had hit Mr King but denied that they caused him to fall from the window. They described the victim as backing into the window in an attempt to avoid their punches.