A MAN who shot and wounded his father after an argument was sentenced to eight years in jail at Wicklow Circuit Criminal Court yesterday, with the last three years of the sentence suspended.
Patrick O’Byrne (19) had pleaded guilty to intentionally and recklessly causing serious harm to his father Séamus at the family farm at Three Wells, Aughrim, on September 29th last year.
The court heard the defendant and his father had an argument that day because he did not go to work drawing soil in Rathdrum.
Returning home on his tractor, Mr O’Byrne got a phone call from his wife Bernie to say their son Patrick had texted her saying he was going to kill his father. When Mr O’Byrne got down off the tractor, his son called out “Do not move” and pointed a shotgun at him. Mr O’Byrne ran towards the cattle shed and Patrick shot him in the back and shoulder.
Patrick came towards his father again at the cattle shed and said “Do not move”. Mr O’Byrne ran to the tractor in the shed and his son fired at random. “He was so near, he would have been able to blow me in two,” Mr O’Byrne later told gardaí. He phoned a friend and his phone was covered in blood. He was taken to hospital.
The court heard the doctor’s report noted Mr O’Byrne’s injuries caused a substantial risk of death.
In his statement to gardaí, O’Byrne said there was a verbal exchange with his father over not going to work that day. He went to the house, there were tears in his eyes and he was very angry. He told gardaí he kicked in the door of the wardrobe where his father had the gun locked.
His intention was to shoot his father in the legs to hurt him, to frighten him and teach him a lesson and make him leave him alone, but not to kill him.
He said he was had broken up with his girlfriend, which did not help the situation.
In suspending the last three years of the sentence, Judge Michael O’Shea directed that O’Byrne enter a bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for three years.