Six months in jail for tenant who assaulted council staff
A middle-aged man, who threw what appeared to be cold tea/coffee or soup on a local authority worker who was repairing a lock at the man’s council apartment, and who, on a later date, spat at a council official who was attempting to deal with an alarm that went off inside his apartment, was given six months in prison following a contested hearing at Monaghan District Court.
Sean Kelly (47) of Cortolvin Villas, Monaghan Town, denied charges that he assaulted Peter Devlin at that address on February 5, 2025, and also that he had engaged in threatening and abusive behaviour on the same occasion.
Kelly further pleaded not guilty to assaulting Andrew Mooney at the same location on October 14, 2024.
Giving evidence, Mr Mooney told the court he was a craft worker for Monaghan County Council. On the afternoon of October 14, he was fixing a door in a communal hallway at Cortolvin Villas when he heard screaming and shouting.
Then someone came in the side door and started shouting, and Mr Mooney decided he couldn’t continue working while this was going on. He picked up his tools and left to call his line manager about the issue.
The manager, Brendan Connolly, told him to wait in the area. Mr Connolly himself arrived at the address at about 2:10pm, and the two of them went back inside a short while after to continue working on the door.
What happened next was that the person at Apartment No 1 opened his door and said, “Here lads”.
‘Brown and lumpy’
With that, Mr Mooney said that, as he looked around, “a substance flew all over me”. He was covered in this from head to toe. It was a cold tea or coffee-type liquid that was “brown and lumpy”, he told Inspector Declan McGarvey, prosecuting. He was not quite sure what it actually was.
Mr Mooney also confirmed to the inspector that the person who threw the liquid was Sean Kelly. After that, Kelly closed his door and went back in. He had started screaming, “I’m gonna f**king kill yous.”
Witness said he and Mr Connolly then finished their job and left.
It was put to the witness by Roisin Courtney, solicitor, that her client would say this simply did not happen, and that he wanted her to ask if any pictures of what happened had been taken.
Mr Mooney replied that the substance thrown would also have been all over the walls, and also in his tool box, but he said that no pictures were taken.
When asked by the solicitor if an incident report was compiled, the witness said there was a report. Both he and Mr Connolly had filled in a report, he confirmed.
It was accepted, however, by Insp McGarvey that no such incident report had been furnished to the defence.
Brendan Connolly, a craft line manager with the council’s housing section, said he arrived at the site at around 2pm to help Mr Mooney having received a call from him a half hour earlier saying he didn’t feel comfortable working at the site on his own.
He corroborated the evidence of Mr Mooney in relation to the liquid throwing incident saying it was his colleague who, unfortunately, “got the brunt of it”.
Mr Connolly confirmed to Ms Courtney that he subsequently filled out a county council incident report.
Further evidence was given by Garda Jamie Kerr, who said Andrew Mooney and Brendan Connolly attended Monaghan Garda Station on October 15 to report the liquid throwing incident that had occurred the previous day.
The garda said he went to the address on October 24, 2024, and that Kelly declined to give a cautioned statement on the matter.
When Ms Courtney confirmed that her client would not be giving evidence, Judge Finnegan said he was proceeding to conviction in respect of the assault on Mr Mooney.
Report of damage to fire alarms
In relation to the alleged incident a few months later on February 5, 2025, Peter Devlin, Tenant Liaison Officer with Monaghan Co Council, said he had attended the Cortolvin premises at 4:15pm that day to assist colleagues following a report of damage to the property.
The items damaged included fire alarms that had been tampered with inside the apartment, meaning there were safety issues for other apartments adjacent and above the subject apartment. The central alarm system for the whole premises had shown that the problem came from inside the apartment in question.
Mr Devlin said they tried numerous times to gain entry to the property, where similar issues had previously been fixed. He tried unsuccessfully to get the tenant to open the door, and then went around to try gaining entrance through the back door. There had been some damage to that door, and it was insecure. He shouted through an open window in a bid to get the tenant’s attention, but there was no response.
Mr Devlin said he then reached in and opened the door, and saw the defendant sitting on the other side of a curtain. When asked why he hadn’t opened the door, the officer said he started talking “gibberish”. Mr Devlin and his colleagues explained to him why they were there, and that this was an emergency in which they had to deal with damage to an alarm.
They continued to carry out the necessary work, and the defendant became irate and “started shouting and swearing at me”. But the witness said he was making no sense. Kelly approached and began shouting in his face, Mr Devlin recalled, before adding, “He then spat at me.”
The court heard he spat at him about three times and, after Mr Devlin pushed him back, the man went out and got into some sort of altercation with a garda.
Ms Courtney told the council official that her client’s instructions were that this just didn’t happen, and that “he never met you before”.
Garda David Hoey in his evidence said he had received a report from Mr Devlin on February 5, 2025 about an alleged assault. Mr Devlin claimed that he was pushed in the chest and spat on. The defendant was invited to make a cautioned statement and declined to do so. Following that a prosecution was initiated against him for assault.
The garda stated that he and Sergeant Seamus Bruen had attended the location on the date in question, where they witnessed Kelly being verbally abusive towards Mr Devlin. He had subsequently been arrested under the Public Order Act.
‘Volatile character’
The court also heard from Sgt Bruen, who said Mr Devlin had requested assistance from gardaí at the outset because the defendant was known to be “a volatile character”. The sergeant said he had accompanied Mr Devlin as he went into the house. Kelly had become aggressive and was shouting but not making any sense.
“He spat at and pushed Mr Devlin,” Sgt Bruen stated. The defendant then wandered outside, and refused to calm down despite being asked to do so. After continuing with his shouting, he was arrested for engaging in threatening and abusive language.
When Ms Courtney indicated that her client had nothing to say to the court, Judge Finnegan said he was satisfied with the State’s evidence on the assault and public order charges and was convicting on these counts also.
It was confirmed to the court that Kelly had no previous convictions but had been in custody since March 4 on the matters before the court. Ms Courtney said her client clearly had mental health issues, and that he had also indicated to her that he had Tourette Syndrome.
It was very difficult to get coherent instructions from him, she added, and asked that the court take a sympathetic course given his lack of previous and the time already served.
Judge Finnegan accepted that the court would normally take a certain course in those circumstances. But Mr Kelly had taken bench warrants, and had insisted on contesting the matters, thereby putting civilian witnesses to considerable inconvenience and upset having to come and give evidence.
So, for the threatening behaviour on February 5 a two-month prison sentence was handed town, with consecutive two-month terms added for the assault on Mr Devlin on that date and on Mr Mooney on the previous October. The judge clarified that this came to a total of six months, and he backdated it to March 4.
Recognisances were fixed in the event of any appeal.
* This article was published with support from the Court Reporting Scheme