An unemployed bouncer who bit three students in separate attacks on the same night - completely biting the top off one student's ear - has been sentenced to eight years in prison with the last three years suspended.
Damien Moloney (24), Ballinasloe, formerly of Ros Cam, Galway, pleaded guilty at Galway Circuit Criminal Court yesterday to intentionally or recklessly causing harm to Bryan O'Gara at Boo Radley's night-club, Forster Street, Galway, last March by biting off most of his right ear.
Moloney also pleaded guilty to assaulting Cian Byrne on the same night by biting him on the face and lower cheek.
He also pleaded guilty to assaulting first-year student Peter Connolly at the Goal Post pub, Woodquay, Galway, an hour earlier that same night, causing nose and eyebrow injuries from a head butt and injury to his ear from a bite.
Garda Claire Burke said that following the most serious and final attack on Mr O'Gara, Moloney had slipped out of the night-club and gone to a house where he was staying for the night. He told a shocked occupant at that house that he still had bits of flesh stuck between his teeth and recounted how he had completely bitten a man's ear off.
Garda Burke said all of the attacks were unprovoked. Moloney had bitten Mr Byrne as he was on the dance floor and when Mr O'Gara intervened, Moloney pulled him down towards him and bit his ear off. He spat the piece of ear out on to the dance floor and then left.
Surgeons at University College Hospital Galway failed to reattach the top of Mr O'Gara's ear. He has grown his hair to cover his ear and he wears a woollen cap in public.
Garda Burke said the attack on Mr Connolly a few hours earlier had occurred in the toilet of the Goal Post pub. Moloney had bitten the student on the ear but Mr Connolly had not pulled against him but had "gone with him" as he pulled him around the toilet area by the ear with his teeth.
Mr Connolly told Garda Burke later that he knew he would have lost his ear if he had not moved with his attacker.
Moloney admitted the assaults. He said he had drunk six cans of beer and half a bottle of vodka before going out. He drank more in a pub before going to the night-club. He claimed he was very intoxicated but the doorman at Boo Radley's knew him and let him in.
A medical report on Mr O'Gara's injury stated he would need further specialist plastic surgery, possibly in Canada, to reconstruct his ear.
The court heard he had suffered a great deal due to the injury and his parents had already spent a great deal on medical bills and would have to spend even more for reconstructive surgery.
Moloney has previous convictions for assault and had jumped out the window of a two-storey building last August before getting treatment for a drink problem.
Judge Raymond Groarke said these had been acts of " sheer savagery" and anyone who met Moloney that night could have suffered the same fate. He did not believe Moloney had the amount of drink consumed that he said he had, observing he would have been on the floor if he had.
Judge Groarke advised Mr O'Gara and his friend that they had grounds on which to take a civil action against Boo Radley's night-club for admitting Moloney, who was intoxicated, into their premises.
He sentenced Moloney to 18 months in prison for each of the assaults on Connolly and Byrne to run consecutively and he then imposed a five-year consecutive sentence for the assault on Mr O'Gara, which the judge described as "permanent and life-altering." He suspended the final three years of the eight-year term and ordered Moloney to keep the peace for eight years after his release from prison.