Cork victim of hammer attack avoids jail for public order offences

Mary O'Callaghan leaves court with her son, Hassan Baker. 

The young man who was left with life-changing injuries from a vicious hammer attack at his home by convicted killer and rapist Ian Horgan has avoided jail for his own public order offences.

Hassan Baker saw Horgan jailed for eight and a half years recently for assault causing him serious harm.

However, the 29-year-old victim, who had his head repeatedly beaten with a hammer, was before Cork Circuit Appeals Court today for offences of his own.

Hassan Baker was given a total jail term of six months at Cork District Court for engaging in threatening behaviour and resisting arrest back on June 19, 2021, at Clifton Terrace, Summerhill North, Cork. He appealed that sentence.

On that occasion, the young man was found to be threatening and abusive and he resisted Garda Sean Byrne as he was being arrested, shouting, “If you didn’t have the uniform I’d dig the head off ya.” 

Defence barrister Orla Meere asked if the accused could be put on a probation bond instead of the jail sentence. State solicitor Frank Nyhan said the defendant still needed the active help of the probation service for him to stay out of trouble. “Left unsupervised, Mr Baker gets into trouble,” Mr Nyhan said.

Judge Helen Boyle acceded to the application to put him on probation bond rather than sending him to jail but she told him he had to engage fully with the probation service and cooperate with them.

Victim impact statement

Hassan Baker said in his victim impact statement when Ian Horgan was sentenced on June 20: “I was beaten with a hammer using full force to the side of my head by Ian Horgan.

Convicted killer and rapist Ian Horgan.

 “I had tried to protect my mother while I struggled to defend myself but I was helpless. The blows of the hammer knocked me out completely. It was a nightmare scene.

“Since I was assaulted, I have felt devastated, scared and I live in a paranoid state … I wake screaming in the night a lot. My life has changed dramatically. I worry about the long-term effect this will have on me as my short-term memory has not been the same since.” 

Detective Superintendent Michael Comyns described how Horgan of no fixed address and formerly of The Hermitage, Macroom, County Cork, left his home in Macroom on March 26, 2022, travelled by bus to Cork city, changed his clothes in a derelict shed and called to the victim’s home, attacking him and his mother.

Mary O’Callaghan, Hassan Baker’s mother, said Ian Horgan only left when she said that her son was dead.