Jail for man who beat and taunted girlfriend in Patrick's Day assault saying 'look at you now b****'

A 35-year old Shannon man with a ’serious streak of violence’ who told his then girlfriend while she lay on the floor covered in blood ‘look at you now b****, you are going to be dead soon’ has been jailed for seven years and one month.

At Ennis Circuit Court, Judge Francis Comerford has imposed the 100 month prison term, with the final 15 months suspended on Mark Hayes of Aidan Park, Shannon for the unprovoked and 'callous' St Patrick’s Day assault on the woman at Rineanna View, Shannon that hospitalised her and left her with a broken eye socket, broken ribs and a collapsed lung and a separate assault causing harm offence on a Co Clare man on April 10th in Shannon.

The woman required a plate to be inserted for her facial injury and a consultant surgeon’s report read out to the court stated that the woman could have died without medical intervention.

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The medical report stated that the woman’s facial injuries “will result in long term disfigurement and stigma” and “her chest trauma and multiple rib fractures may cause her long term physical pain and discomfort”. The woman remained in hospital at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) for 11 days after her assault on St Patrick’s Day.

Judge Comerford imposed a 70 month or six year ten month prison sentence for Mr Hayes’s assault on his then girlfriend and a consecutive 30 month prison term with the final 15 months suspended for an “unprovoked, random, vicious and irrational” assault from behind on a local resident, Denis Galvin while minding his own business on April 10th.

Judge Comerford said that Mr Hayes’s “sustained attack” on his then partner was borne out of his own internal resentments and insecurities and the injuries are at the highest level of assault causing harm offending. The court was told that as the woman recovered from her injuries after the St Patrick’s Day assault, Mr Hayes sent her a message via Facebook saying “I hope you have a speedy recovery’.

Mr Hayes pleaded guilty to both assault causing harm charges on the two victims and threatening to kill the woman but when first interviewed by Gardai on the assault on his then partner, he denied any knowledge of it and told Gardai “that’s a complete fabrication. She has made it all up. She must have let a psychopath into the house”.

When shown photos of the injuries he inflicted on the woman’s face, Mr Hayes told Gardai “are you sure she hadn’t fallen? how is she”?

In evidence, Det Sgt Kevin O’Hagan of Shannon Garda Station told the court that Mr Hayes’s then partner while laying on the floor covered in blood on the night of St Patrick’s Day, she thought Hayes was going to kill her and pleaded with him ‘please don’t leave my kids without a mother’.

In evidence, Det Sgt O’Hagan said that the two had been out drinking on St Patrick’s Day and they returned home to her house at Rineanna View.

Counsel for the State, Sarah Jane Comerford BL (inst by State Solicitor for Clare, Aisling Casey) said that the woman was in the kitchen and Mr Hayes came into the kitchen and “he punched her straight away in the face and and knocked her to the side and smashed her head against the kitchen tiles and starting stamping on her ribs”.

Det Sgt O’Hagan said that Mr Hayes threw a kitchen table at her and he smashed her over the head two or three times with a small round blue table. Ms Comerford said that Hayes told the woman that he was “going to smash her teeth back in her face and leave her destroyed”.

Ms Comerford said that while Hayes was beating the woman, he took a blue handled sharp knife that was 10 or 12 inches long and he traced it along her back when she was on the ground but he was saying he was going to stab her

In her statement, the woman said Hayes didn’t cut her but told her ‘soon enough I will stab you’.

As part of what Judge Comerford described as a “cunning and callous assault”, Mr Hayes grabbed the woman’s hand and made her hold the knife and said that he was putting her fingerprints on it so if Gardai came to the crime scene he could say that she attacked him and it was self defence.

Det Sgt O’Hagan said that the bloodied woman ran out the front door of her home and was spotted by her teenage daughter at the opposite side of the green who ran to her mother’s aid. Mr Hayes fled the scene.

In her victim impact statement, the woman said that her daughter “thought I was dead when she saw me covered in blood”. In her statement read out by Det Sgt O’Hagan, the woman said: “I am just happy to be alive but I have severe mental health problems.”

Det Sgt O’Hagan said that the woman was still too traumatised by the assault to come to court for the sentencing. Det Sgt O'Hagan said that Mr Hayes has prior convictions for violent assaults and received a three year prison term in 2015 for a 2013 assault at a Shannon hotel.

Det Sgt O’Hagan told the court that Mr Hayes has been before the courts for “three separate instances of an extremely violent nature”. Det Sgt O’Hagan said that Mr Hayes has “a serious streak in violence in him at certain stages”. In all Mr Hayes has 20 previous convictions.

Judge Comeford backdated Mr Hayes’s sentence to April 12 when he was initially brought into custody at Limerick prison.

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