A FATHER and son have been found not guilty of threatening to kill a woman who claimed both men had burst into her house looking for her boyfriend.
Joseph Kirwan (56) and Trevor Kirwan (30) appeared before Kilkenny Circuit Court yesterday.
Both men had pleaded not guilty to a total of 13 charges including assaulting Agnieszka Meleskska and threatening to kill her at her home at Edmund Rice Estate, Callan, Co Kilkenny, on June 15th, 2008.
They were also both charged with criminal damage to a car belonging to Ms Meleskska’s boyfriend Declan Burke and with trespass with an iron bar at the couple’s house on the same date.
Joseph Kirwan, Edmund Rice Estate, Callan, Co Kilkenny, was acquitted by a jury of all charges against him. His son Trevor, Clonkill, Callan, Co Kilkenny, was found not guilty of threatening to kill Ms Meleskska and not guilty of trespassing in her house with an iron bar. He was found guilty of causing criminal damage to a car belonging to Mr Burke.
The jury failed to return a verdict on two other charges of criminal damage and of one count of assault, all against Trevor Kirwan.
The trial, which lasted eight days, heard Trevor Kirwan had gone to the couple’s house after his father told him a friend of Mr Burke’s had threatened to burn down his house. Trevor Kirwan admitted smashing windows in the couple’s house and of smashing Mr Burke’s car windows.
He denied entering the house and said he never threatened or assaulted Ms Meleskska.
Giving evidence, Mr Kirwan snr said he was subjected to “abuse” from Mr Burke over a five-year period. Mr Kirwan snr told the court that relations between him and Mr Burke had “soured” because “Declan Burke tried to sell his son, Kenneth, drugs”.
Judge Olive Buttimer adjourned sentencing on Trevor Kirwan to the next sitting of the court and ordered that a probation report be carried out on him.