Carlow man stood on roof of car and assaulted ex-partner
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A 26-YEAR-old man who stood on his former partner’s car causing thousands of euros worth of damage received a three-year suspended sentence from Judge Eugene O’Kelly at a recent sitting of Carlow Circuit Court.
Scott Lambe, 103 Riverview Close, Carlow pleaded guilty to one count of criminal damage on 30 July 2025.
At the sentencing hearing, Garda Alan Long explained that gardaí were dispatched to a domestic situation in Carlow on 17 May 2024. They found the house vacant on arrival, with signs of a struggle. The door was open, lights were on, items were “tumbled over” and there was a blood-soaked cloth in the hallway.
Garda Long said he went upstairs and found a ten-year-old child on her own. They brought her to the garda station and got in contact with her mother. When she attended the station, gardaí observed a large gash on her head. The woman indicated that she did not want to give a statement of complaint at the time but allowed her injuries to be photographed.
On 3 January 2025, the victim gave a statement to gardaí and in it she alleged that her ex-partner had called to the house and she had refused to see him. Mr Lambe appeared to be intoxicated, she said, and threatened to damage her car. The victim came downstairs and found the defendant standing on the bonnet and roof of her car. She pleaded with him to stop and tried to close the front door, but he stuck his foot in the doorway, preventing it from shutting.
He chased after her inside the house and caught her, she said, causing her to bang her head on a step on the stairs. She then said he threw her down to the bottom of the stairs and gave her a knee and kick to the head, causing her to pass out.
When she came to, she found him standing over her, crying. She asked him to call an ambulance, but he took her phone and left. She said she then went to a relative’s house nearby and phoned the gardaí.
She later attended St Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny for her injuries.
In her victim impact statement, the woman said that Mr Lambe caused “much destruction and turmoil”. She said her daughter had suffered mentally from the incident and was scared of walking to school with her friends out of fear that she would encounter Mr Lambe.
She explained that she was a single mother to three young kids, not fathered by Mr Lambe, and that his actions had destroyed her car and her self-esteem. “He has left me facially scarred for the rest of my life,” she said of her injuries. “I can’t trust anyone, my relationships have suffered. I don’t ever feel safe at night.”
Éammon O’Moore BL for the defence noted the damage to the car was estimated to be €5,000 and that his client had made compensation of €7,000 available to the victim, who was amenable to receiving it.
He said the defendant lives with his mother and had a recent mental health crisis, evidenced by a GP letter. He had been diagnosed with an emotional, unstable personality disorder at the age of 23, which led to an “inability to effectively communicate” and “manage his emotions”, but that he had not received medical treatment for this until recently. Medication had led to a “marked improvement in his behaviour,” said Mr O’Moore.
He noted his client had completed his leaving certificate and had recently re-entered employment.
The garda acknowledged that Mr Lambe had four previous road traffic convictions between 2021 and 2023, which resulted in “small fines” and that he wasn’t on bail or a suspended sentence at the time. He further acknowledged that the defendant hadn’t come to garda attention since.
A probation report dated 17 February of this year noted that Mr Lambe had completed the Athy Alternative Project. He had joined a local football club and was attending regular counselling sessions. They assessed him as being at low risk of general reoffending, despite him being a regular substance user in his teens. Mr O’Moore said his client had instructed him that he has been sober since December 2025.
He issued “an unequivocal apology” to the court and victim on behalf of his client, at which point the judge interrupted and asked the defendant to make an undertaking to the court that “there is no reason for this young lady to fear in respect of you and your presence in the neighbourhood”. Mr Lambe did as asked.
Judge O’Kelly described the damage to the car as a “deliberate” act, “presumably out of temper”. He set a headline sentence at four years in prison, reducing it by one year because of the mitigating factors.
He then said he was prepared to suspend the sentence in full, on the conditions that Mr Lambe is subject to probation supervision for two years, completes offence-focused work, undergoes a spousal assault risk assessment as directed by probation services, facilitates a referral to the Men Ending Domestic Abuse programme, should the probation service feel it is appropriate, and has no contact direct or indirect with the victim or her children for five years from the date of sentencing.
On accepting the sentence, Mr Lambe entered into a €100 bond.
