A 21-year-old man has been sentenced to three years in prison for biting off part of another man’s ear in an unprovoked assault in Eyre Square last year.
James Ward, 50 Gaelcarrig Park, Newcastle, appeared in custody before Galway Circuit Criminal Court, as he is already serving a total of twelve months in prison for a series of other assaults.
Ward pleaded guilty earlier this year to assaulting the 19-year-old man, causing him harm, at Eyre Square on March 20 last year and sentence was adjourned for the preparation of an impact statement from the victim and a probation report on the accused.
Garda Ronan Leonard told the sentence hearing a young County Clare man was sitting in Eyre Square with his girlfriend and a group of other friends at 5pm on the day in question when Ward came along and leaned in towards the victim.
Garda Leonard said the victim thought Ward wanted to say something to him and he leaned forward. Then, for no reason, Ward bit the top half of the young man’s right ear off before walking away.
Garda Leonard said the victim was in great pain and distress and without thinking he just started walking away from Eyre Square. He walked all the way out to GMIT and got on a bus which brought him home to County Clare.
In his victim impact statement, which Garda Leonard read on his behalf to the court, the victim said he was in a state of shock at the time and he just wanted to get out of Galway City as fast as he could.
He realised when he got home that the top half of his ear was missing.
He had to undergo surgery to stitch the wound, and more of the ear had to be removed where Ward’s teeth marks could be seen.
In his impact statement, the victim said he walked quickly out of Eyre Square and Galway City after the attack because he didn’t feel safe.
He said he did not want to come to court because he feared Ward or his friends would attack him.
He said he hated it when people asked him about his ear now.
“The assault has ruined my life. It has turned my life upside-down.
“I wasn’t the most confident person before this happened and I’m worse now,” he said.
Garda Leonard said Ward had four previous convictions. Two were for serious assaults, one was for a less serious assault, and one was for sending obscene and threatening text messages.
Ward, he said, was currently serving sentences totalling twelve months and was due for release in October.
Defence barrister, John Hogan, said his client pleaded guilty to this attack at the earliest opportunity. This, he said, had spared the victim from having to give evidence and he would have known for a long time that he would not have to come to court.
He said he asked Ward why he had not proffered an apology to the victim and Ward told him he had been warned as part of his bail conditions not to make any contact with the victim.
Ward wrote a letter of apology which was handed into court. In it, he said he had been drinking and taking prescription drugs at the time of the assault.
He said he had seen his father dead when he was 13 and he had been bullied as a youngster because he had bad eyesight. He claimed he was also angry because some of his friends had committed suicide.
Mr Hogan said Ward was doing very well in prison. He was attending several educational classes and had applied to do an anger management course as well.
In his letter to Judge Rory McCabe, which was read out to the court, Ward said: “I’ve seen what prison is like and it’s not the life for me.”
Mr Hogan conceded a negative report from the probation service was of concern and his client knew he was going to get a custodial sentence for this latest assault.
“He is appalled by his own actions and he wants to apologise to the victim now,” Mr Hogan added.
Judge McCabe said alcohol, drugs and a propensity towards violence contributed to Ward inflicting this horrendous injury.
He said the accused offered no explanation for his actions and had been dishonest in his dealings with the probation service as stated in its report to the court.
The victim impact statement was “disturbing” and it related the victim’s ongoing fear of Ward, the judge noted.
He placed the offence at the top end of the scale of gravity, bearing in mind, he said, Ward’s previous convictions for violent assaults and his lack of insight into his victim’s suffering, as reported by the probation service.
“His expression that he would ‘consider’ apologising is the way the probation service reported his attitude and the service is of the view that he was not committed to apologising at all,” Judge McCabe said.
He said Ward had been untruthful in the past so he had no confidence in his attempts to convince the court that he was interested in rehabilitation.
“It’s no more than a last-minute attempt to ‘sweeten the bitter pill’.
“He’s expressed remorse now through his barrister, but only he knows if he means it; if he is sorry for what he did, or merely sorry for being caught,” Judge McCabe said.
He then sentenced Ward to three years in prison, the sentence to run concurrently to the sentences he is already serving.
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