By Natasha Reid
A 34-year-old Dublin man punched his mother in the head repeatedly, pinned her against a wall and held his hands around her neck in a ‘meltdown’ over a cigarette, a court has heard.
Keith Walsh of Carnlough Road in Cabra was before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday, where he pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to Maura Walsh, now 64, at that address on 22nd August 2024.
Garda Aaron McGrath told the court that he received a call to the house in the early hours of that morning and that Maura Walsh answered the door.
She told him that everything was fine and had no idea who had called the gardai. She said that her adult children were there but were asleep in bed.
The garda asked her in a lower tone if she was alright, and she replied again that she was fine.
He told her that he’d be in the area for the night and that, if she needed gardai, she should call 999.
He got another call to a disturbance at the house 20 minutes later, and this time, Ms Walsh answered the door with blood flowing down her neck from a cut on her face.
She said she had been assaulted by her son, who had left the house by an upstairs window, having jumped onto a first-floor roof into the back garden.
After a short search, he was apprehended in a neighbour’s garden.
His mother then made a statement that the defendant had come home around 11.30 the night before, and had come into her bedroom demanding a cigarette.
She gave him one, and he went downstairs, where he left it on a plate.
She thought he wasn’t going to use it and took it back. However, he followed her upstairs and started punching her about the head.
It was at this stage that someone called the gardai for the first time, but when she answered the door, she was aware that her son was at the top of the stairs, listening.
Her statement said that when the gardaí left, he had been angry that they were there and started shouting at her.
He had his hands around her neck, and she was telling him that she couldn’t breathe.
He pinned her against the wall and started punching her again.
Ms Walsh fell down between the bed and a wall and hit her face off the wall, but he kept hitting her head and face, and she was afraid that her nose was broken.
This is when he jumped out the window.
Ms Walsh later withdrew her statement and declined to make a victim impact statement.
However, photographs of her injuries taken on the night were shown to the court.
Gda McGrath agreed with the defence that the defendant was intoxicated when arrested, but was later embarrassed and apologised.
He agreed that Walsh still lives with his mother, who has accompanied him to court on each occasion to face this charge. He also accepted that the guilty plea was of assistance, given that the injured party had withdrawn her statement.
Counsel for the defence said that there was a background to the case.
He said that his client had been out drinking, had come home and had ‘a meltdown, a breakdown’.
He said that his client had worked for Red Bull, travelling the world for 10 years after school, before coming home and working as a warehouse operative and on building sites.
He had begun drinking and using drugs, and was ‘trying to keep it together’, but things got on top of him in the last few years, he explained.
He struggled with his mental health and addiction and attended the Cuan Mhuire rehabilitation centre, he said. However, he had no certificate of completion to hand to the judge.
“The fact is he raised his hand to his mother and put his hands around her neck… in her own house, in her own bedroom, which I find highly aggravating,” remarked Judge Martina Baxter.
She suggested he needed to resolve the issues that had led to his addiction.
“He has to work that little bit harder,” she said.
“He needs to have a little bit more insight into the fact that the mother, who gave him life, was on the ground, caused by him.”
She also said that she wanted some proof to show he had tackled his addiction.
She adjourned sentencing until November for the probation services to get involved and assess the risk Walsh now poses.