Man previously guilty of cattle theft assaulted sister in row over land

A convicted cattle rustler in conflict with his farmer sister over land assaulted her after she told him "go home and take your tablets", a court has heard.

At Killaloe District Court sitting in Ennis, Judge Alec Gabbett imposed a four-month suspended prison term on Padraig O’Brien for the assault causing harm of his sister Áine O’Brien at Sheaun, Scarriff, in east Clare on 30 August 2023.

In the witness box and in a statement to gardaí, Mr O’Brien (50) of Prospect House, Scarriff, admitted to shoving his sister into a roadside whitethorn bush that cut her ear and her arm.

Mr O’Brien previously received a three-year suspended prison term after pleading guilty at Ennis Circuit Court in 2017 to 15 separate counts of stealing cattle off a neighbouring 74-year-old farmer between December 2013 and 17 January 2015.

At Mr O’Brien’s sentencing hearing in 2017, the court was told Mr O’Brien was being shunned in his local community by former friends and acquaintances due to the offences.

Conflict

When questioned by gardaÍ in November 2023 concerning the assault on his sister Áine in August 2023, Mr O’Brien said: “There has been an awful lot of conflict between myself and Áine over the years.

In the statement read out in court by Garda Darren McLoughlin, Mr O’Brien said: “It was due to land that my father signed over to Áine three years ago and I only found out about my father signing over the land in January of this year.”

Solicitor for Mr O’Brien Jim Nash told Judge Gabbett that Mr O’Brien “has very little land available to farm because the substantial part of the family farm was transferred by his father to his sister”.

Mr Nash said that the father is now aged in his 80s.

In the case, Judge Gabbett rejected Mr O’Brien’s defence of provocation over his sister Áine’s comment of "go home and take your tablets".

Judge Gabbett said: “Maybe there are two of them in it, but that doesn’t justify the assault. Mr O’Brien is honest, I’ll give him that in that he didn’t shirk away from what he did, but I don’t see justification in this at all.

“This kind of behaviour can’t continue. He is lucky there is only one charge sheet here. It is a serious assault - his sister should not have had to endure that.”

Judge Gabbett said: “These parties need to learn how to exist peacefully together in the same area.”

Suspended prison term

Judge Gabbett said that the suspended prison term will act as a deterrent against any potential future offending, but said that the case did not merit an immediate custodial sentence.

In the contested case, Mr Nash put it to Áine O’Brien that “if you remained silent about ‘go home and take your tablets’ there would have been no incident between your brother and yourself”.

In response, Ms O’Brien said: “I think he still would have behaved the way he did.”

In evidence, Mr O’Brien said that he was driving his jeep from Mountshannon to Scarriff when he encountered cattle on the road.

He told the court: “There was a bunch of cows coming flyin' and I pulled in."

He said he didn’t realise they were Áine’s cattle and “next thing I saw my sister Áine coming and she was vile, shouting and roaring that I struck one of her heifers and started going on about tablets and told me to go away home to take my tablets”.

'Hurling abuse'

He said: “She was hurling abuse at me, roaring and shouting - I struck no animal and I was not out to hit anyone’s animal.”

Asked about the reference to tablets, Mr O’Brien said: “I was on antidepressants years ago.”

Judge Gabbett said: “You won’t be the first and won’t be the last in this courtroom - this court takes no heed to any person taking tablets for their mental health as most of the people who come in here have some ailment that requires some sort of assistance.”

Mr O’Brien said that he then got out of his car and said “I have had enough of you” before “I shoved her into the ditch and she started shouting ‘I have you now, I have you now'”.

At Garda interview, Mr O’Brien was shown photos of his sister’s injuries and Mr O’Brien said: “I accept I caused those injuries by pushing her into the ditch.”