Judge laments lack of support for offender with mental health issues

A judge has lamented the lack of societal support for a homeless man with mental health issues who assaulted two elderly men in unprovoked attacks in Cork city centre because he believed older men were more likely to be sex offenders.

Judge Sean O’Donnabháin said it was regrettable that there weren’t more societal supports available to someone like the accused, Kyle Duggan (31) as he sentenced him to 18 months in jail for one assault and 12 months concurrent for the second assault.

“He had dropped out of focus and had stopped taking his medication – for a man with such profound difficulties, you would expect a more coherent societal reaction given he has been ill with this condition since he was 16,” he said.

Judge O’Donnabháin was commenting after hearing evidence regarding Duggan of no fixed abode, who had pleaded guilty last October to two separate counts of assault causing harm to a 75-year-old man on the North Gate Bridge and a 73-year-old man on Cornmarket St on March 5th 2018.

Garda Brian Barron told Cork Circuit Criminal Court: “His reasons were hard enough to follow. They were a bit all over the place. There was no rational reason for the assaults.”

The court heard that Duggan had 100 previous convictions including three for assault causing harm and two for common assault.

Defence counsel Dermot Sheehan SC said his client had been released from prison in 2016, and while he was estranged from his parents, his aunt had offered him accommodation. However, he had opted to sleep rough on the streets, but was not able to access anti-psychotic medication he was prescribed.

Mr Sheehan said that there was a place available for his client in St Vincent’s hostel upon his release from prison and he asked Judge O Donnabháin to take into account his full co-operation with investigating gardaí and his guilty pleas as he pleaded for leniency.