Declan Brennan
A burglar who was beaten with a golf club by the homeowner as he tried to get out of the flat he had broken into has been jailed for three years.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that on the evening of July 2, 2022 the male resident of an apartment in Dundrum, south Dublin was asleep on the living room couch with his girlfriend when he heard a noise in the bedroom.
He went into the bedroom and saw an intruder in the room.
The resident later told gardai that he was concerned to protect his partner and his first instinct was to restrain the man, later identified as Gary Bailey (45).
During a struggle the man wrapped his legs around Bailey's torso and Bailey grabbed the resident by the groin.
The female resident heard her partner screaming and came into the room to see the men wrestling and the intruder trying to get away.
Her partner shouted at her to get a knife to protect them, and she called gardaí, Aoife O'Leary BL prosecuting told the court.
Bailey managed to get free of the homeowner. He was halfway out the window when the homeowner grabbed a driving iron from a golf bag and hit Bailey a few times in the leg.
The court heard that Bailey's foot got stuck in the blinds, and he fell out of the window. The investigating garda told the court that “he was hanging upside down briefly from the blinds”.
The court heard that during the struggle, a TV set in the bedroom was damaged and the blinds were broken by Bailey.
After his arrest Bailey was deemed medically unfit for question for six hours. He later told gardai he was “out of his head” on tablets and when he saw the open window and decided to go in and take what he could.
Bailey of Gleann Na Ri, Druids Valley, Loughlinstown, Dublin pleaded guilty to burglary on a property in Dundrum, Co Dublin on July 2, 2022. He has a number of previous convictions for burglaries.
Judge Martin Nolan noted that once confronted Bailey's “sole ambition was to escape”. He imposed a three year prison sentence which he backdated to July 2022, when Bailey went into custody.
The court heard Bailey hadn't planned the break-in and it was a spur of the moment decision to go in.
He told gardai he knocked on the window a few times and waited a few minutes before going in as he didn't think anyone was in the house.
Bailey told gardai “this was not the crime of a mastermind” and pointed out how much noise the blinds had made when he was trying to get in. He said he was in the room when somebody jumped on his back and he then just tried to get away and out.
Karl Monaghan BL, defending, said his client had a long struggle with drug addiction and had gotten clean a number of times. He said he was full of remorse and wanted to apologise to the two victims.
Judge Nolan said that Bailey had seen the open window, spotted an opportunity and “his worse instincts took over”.
He said it was a serious matter to burgle someone's home but he accepted that once confronted Bailey's “sole ambition was to escape” and there was no “gratuitous violence on his part”.
