A former Irish boxing champion carried out a violent, unprovoked assault on the way home from a night out after spiralling out of control on drugs during the Covid lockdown, a court has heard.
Michael Nevin (26) pleaded guilty to assault causing harm contrary to Section 3 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 at Mountmellick Street, Portlaoise, Co Laois on November 23rd, 2022.
A sitting of Portlaoise Circuit Criminal Court heard that Darragh Kinch, was attacked by a small group of people including the accused at around 1am while he was waiting with his partner, Catriona O’Neill, to get a lift home.
A garda gave evidence that Mr Kinch had needed to have a metal plate implanted in his face as part of the treatment for his injuries.
Garda Aisling O’Boyle told the court that the accused had been identified from a series of CCTV images in Portlaoise which had also captured part of the assault.
Garda O’Boyle said they showed that Nevin as well as two others – Christy Nevin and Rosaleen Nevin – had spent a period in the town and appeared quite intoxicated as they were heading home.
She observed that the group “seemed to be looking for a fight” around the time they approached the victim and his partner.
The court heard Ms O’Neill was slapped in the face by Rosaleen Nevin which caused her glasses to fall on the ground.
Garda O’Boyle said Mr Kinch was punched and kicked by the accused as he bent down to pick up his partner’s glasses.
She said the victim received several kicks to his head and body before Nevin was dragged away.
The witness said Nevin, who was seen on CCTV raising his arms in the air in celebratory style during the assault, was also heard threatening to kill Mr Kinch.
She agreed with counsel for the DPP, Will Fennelly BL, that the two men were total strangers to each other.
Garda O’Boyle said clothing seized during a search of Nevin’s home by gardaí had matched those worn by Mr Kinch’s assailant.
Mr Fennelly observed that the accused and Christy Nevin both appeared to be adopting “boxing-style posturing” on the CCTV images, although Judge Keenan Johnson remarked that the defendant seemed “docile” in the earlier images.
The court heard that Mr Kinch spent two days in the emergency department at the Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise as well as three days in St James’s Hospital in Dublin where he underwent several surgical procedures to treat his facial injuries, which included a broken jaw.
In a victim impact statement, Mr Kinch said he had not thought what had started out as a surprise dinner date would end with “such catastrophic consequences.”
Blackout
The victim said he had a blackout from the assault in which he suffered a broken jaw, nose and fracture around his eye.
Mr Kinch said he suffered excruciating pain during the week he had to wait for surgery and needed to be on a soft diet for six weeks.
He also said the assault impacted on him financially and professionally because of the time he needed to take off work.
The court heard that both he and his partner suffered broken sleep from reliving the incident, and he experienced both physical and mental pain.
Mr Kinch said they also had to make changes to their lifestyle as they now avoided socialising in Portlaoise and had lost some friendships as a result.
“The feeling of vulnerability and not feeling safe is crippling,” he said.
The court heard that Nevin, who was a bronze medallist in the European Championships in 2019 at middleweight level, was one fight away from qualifying for the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021 when he finished with the sport.
In evidence, the boxer said he still did not remember anything from the night of the assault.
The unemployed father of two from Harpurs Lane, Portlaoise, who had no previous convictions, said he was sincerely sorry for his victim and Mr Kinch’s family.
“They should not have had to go through that,” said Nevin.
“I never got into a fight outside the ring apart from that time,” he observed.
Nevin told the court that he never had time to grieve the death of his mother from suicide when he was aged 14 as he had boxing the next day.
He observed: “Boxing was my whole life. When Covid hit, I got really depressed. I did not know what to do.”
The court heard that he was training three times a day prior to the pandemic as he was “an elite athlete.”
However, Nevin admitted that he had fallen into bad company and was taking cocaine and drinking every day, but stressed that he was now off drugs and alcohol for the past two years.
“I regret the whole lot,” he added.
He informed the court that he also had returned to boxing and planned “to go professional.”
Judge Johnson observed that the accused’s hands were “weapons because of your training” and said it was a tragedy that he had gotten into bad company.
Defence counsel, Damien Colgan SC, noted that Nevin had entered an early guilty plea and also observed that other parties were involved in the incident in which the accused was not the instigator.
However, Mr Colgan said Nevin accepted that he went back to assault Mr Kinch during the incident.
The barrister said his client was “a gifted boxer” who had shown insight into his offending.
Judge Johnson accepted that the assault was an “aberration” for Nevin in an otherwise unblemished career in which he had enjoyed significant success with the same potential again in the future.
He remanded Nevin on bail to a sitting of the same court in November to allow time to get funds together to offer to his victim.
The judge remarked that the accused was lucky to have a father who was a “very good role model” who had raised his eight children single-handedly following their mother’s death.
