Carlow man gets one year in prison for public order offences
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A CARLOW man with 121 previous convictions received a total of 12 months in prison for public order offences and a theft offence at Carlow District Court recently.
Eddie Dundon, 3 Academy Court, Carlow faced 13 charges for offences including being intoxicated in a public place, theft and exhibiting threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour in a public place.
His solicitor Joe Farrell said Mr Dundon (66) had “reluctantly entered a guilty plea” for the offences.
Inspector Conor Nolan outlined the charges from incidents occurring in May, June and July this year.
On 20 May at 7.40am on Tullow Street, Mr Dundon was arrested by Garda Dalton for his own safety after gardaí observed him in an intoxicated state. He was arrested for the same public order offence of being intoxicated on 6 and 24 June.
On 7 June, Mr Dundon was observed shouting and acting in an aggressive manner to a woman and three children on Kennedy Avenue, Carlow town. He was highly intoxicated and was arrested by garda Whelan.
He again was found to be intoxicated and verbally abusing members of the public on 27 June in Carlow town and was arrested by Garda Murphy.
He was further charged by Garda Kenny with theft of a bottle of cider amounting to €6.29 from O’Brien’s Wine Off-Licence, Potato Market, Carlow on 2 July, which was evidenced through CCTV.
On 14 July, he was observed being intoxicated and abusive in public and arrested under the .
Sixty-nine of Mr Dundon’s 121 previous convictions were for being drunk in public and 23 were for offences, of engaging in threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour.
Mr Farrell told the court that Mr Dundon had secured accommodation but frequently left it during the day.
Mr Farrell asked the judge to give his client the benefit of the plea and noted that all the incidents seemed to occur in the town centre. He asked if the court could structure the sentence to keep him from the town centre.
Judge Geraldine Carthy said the incident where he shouted at children was “particularly nasty” and said she had a “duty to society” in deciding the sentence.
After considering the matter over lunch, she sentenced him to two months for Garda Whelan’s charge, another two months consecutively for Garda Doran’s public order charge, a third consecutive two-month prison term on Garda Murphy’s charge and a six-month consecutive sentence for the theft charge of Garda Kenny.
Judge Carthy took into consideration the other matters and fixed recognisance at €1,000 own bond, given the “voluminous amount of bench warrants” issued against Mr Dundon.
