Man abused garda at scene of Fairgreen shooting
A 24-YEAR-OLD Carlow man has received a suspended three-month prison sentence after refusing to leave the scene of a serious incident at Fairgreen Shopping Centre, where he hurled abuse at a garda in front of a crowd of young people.
Mark Delaney with an address at Dereen Heights appeared before Judge Derek Cooney at Carlow District Court after being arrested that morning on foot of a bench warrant. He pleaded guilty to offences under section 6 and section 8 of the .
Judge Cooney noted there was no objection to bail and asked about the defendant’s failure to attend court on a previous date.
“He led a slightly chaotic existence at the time,” defence solicitor Chris Hogan said in response. “His girlfriend was expecting their first child, so he just forgot about the date at the time.”
Stating the facts, prosecuting Sgt McPartlin told the court that on 1 June 2025 at 6.50pm, Garda Dunne was attending an “extremely serious incident at Fairgreen Shopping Centre” when he began receiving abuse from the defendant, who was sitting on a nearby wall.
Sgt McPartlin said Mr Delaney told Garda Dunne: “I bet you shot him, Brian, didn’t you?”
Gardaí asked Mr Delaney to leave the area several times, but he failed to do so. Sgt McPartlin described his behaviour as a deliberate attempt to disrupt the peace, contrary to section 8 and a large group of young people was present at the scene.
The court heard that Mr Delaney has seven previous convictions, five of them for public order offences. The most recent was in February 2022, when he received a two-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, for a section 3 public order offence. Judge Cooney noted that the offence date in that case was from July 2021, which, he said, was four and a half years ago.
“He has asked me to apologise to the court and accepts it was immature,” Mr Hogan said.
“He was on the wall recording the aftermath of the incident, and was asked to get down, which he didn’t do, and he used some choice words,” the solicitor told the court.
Mr Hogan said his client had recently completed a training programme with Intreo to help him enter the workforce. He asked the court to be lenient on account of his remorse and his guilty plea, despite the execution of a bench warrant.
Judge Cooney said the aggravating factors were the defendant’s previous convictions and that there was “no excuse for what happened”.
“The gardaí have a hard enough job as it is without people showing off, being bravado,” he said.
“He just had to comply with what the guards said, but he didn’t,” the judge added.
For the section 8 offence of failing to comply with a garda’s directions, Judge Cooney convicted Mr Delaney and sentenced him to three months in prison, suspended for 12 months. The section 6 offence, which relates to threatening or abusive behaviour, was taken into consideration.
The judge fixed recognisance at €500 in the defendant’s own bond, with no lodgement required.
