A man who broke a teenager’s eye socket with a single punch in a case of mistaken identity in Dún Laoghaire has been given a 2½-year suspended jail sentence.
The attacker, Conor O’Regan (22), had been out socialising with friends when he claimed he had been set upon by a group of people. He and his friends then tried to find the people who had been causing him trouble and wrongly identified Cian O’Hara, then 18 years old, as one of the culprits.
Mr O’Hara tried to tell him he had nothing to do with it but O’Regan hit him a blow to the side of his face. The victim told gardaí he felt a cracking sensation and was left stunned. He later needed a metal plate inserted into his left eye socket which had been fractured by the punch.
Guilty plea
O'Regan of Bay View Court, Killiney, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assaulting Mr O'Hara causing him harm on Marine Road, Dún Laoghaire, on September 22nd, 2012. He has no previous convictions and has not come to Garda attention since.
O’Regan stood in court to apologise to Mr O’Hara: “Cian, I apologise for my actions and I am very sorry for what I have done to you and your family. I will never do anything like that again.”
Mr O’Hara, who had stated in his victim impact report that he didn’t believe O’Regan was a bad person, replied, “Cheers, thank you.”
Judge Mary Ellen Ring commented that parents worry about their “children, who are no longer children, getting home safely” while out socialising.