Man jumped into Cork river during garda chase after breaking into ex-partner's home

Judge warns man to to change his attitude if he wants to avoid jail

Joshua Graddon jumped into the River Ilen while being chased by gardaí.

A Bantry man who broke into his ex-partner’s Skibbereen home before swimming across a river from gardaí has been warned by a sentencing judge to change his attitude to the probation service if he wants to avoid jail.

Joshua Graddon of Cúl Na Gréine, Bantry, Co Cork, was back before Judge Dara Hayes for sentencing at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

The judge said the probation report was at best, ‘mixed’.

Sentencing was adjourned until October 24.

“I would like him to continue under the probation service until that time,” the judge said.

Turning directly to the accused, the judge said: “In your dealings with probation you did not attend meetings. In your most recent engagement, the sense is perhaps that you resented some of the probation officer’s probing of your past. It is important that you are absolutely open and frank with the probation service.

“If a similar report comes back to me I will have very little option but to impose a custodial sentence.”

Graddon pleaded guilty to entering her home as a trespasser, assaulting her at his own home earlier, and also assaulting his housemate on April 21, 2020.

Detective Garda Dan Lordan said gardaí were alerted at 9.30pm to the break-in at the young woman’s home. She had concerns for her safety at The Moorings in Skibbereen.

“Gardaí found the front door open and they went in and called out. They found that the back door was also open and a window in the kitchen had been smashed and there was glass all over the floor.

“A male was identified walking quickly away from the side of the house. He took off running and was chased on foot. He climbed a wall onto the Schull Road. There was a foot chase for a quarter of a mile. He jumped into the Ilen River — a rather large river — to swim across. He was met by Garda Keith O’Leary on the other side and he violently resisted arrest. He was arrested and taken to the garda station,” Det Garda Lordan said.

He pleaded guilty to trespassing at his ex-partner’s house and to two minor assaults. Those assaults were carried out earlier in the day when he ‘shoved’ the young woman and a man who was a housemate. His ex-partner believed he was intoxicated as he was abusive, hostile, and confrontational at the time.

Peter O’Flynn, defending, said: “Mr Graddon was upset at how he might have frightened his ex-partner. He hopes she knows he would never hurt her. He would never do that.” 

As for his intentions in going to the house, the defendant said he did not know why he went to her house and that he should have stayed at home.