Father and son sentenced in Carlow Circuit Court for assault during baby’s wake

A CARLOW father and son have been sentenced for assaulting three people while the son’s stillborn child was being waked at their home.

Michael Slater Senior (61) and Michael Slater Junior (36) assaulted the mother of the child, Mr Slater Jnr’s partner, who had given birth to the baby the previous day. They also assaulted her sister and her sister’s partner, with victims being attacked with a wooden axe handle and a floorboard. They were all later treated in hospital for various facial injuries.

Mr Slater Jnr, who was described in court by Judge Eugene O’Kelly as “a man with a propensity to violence”, broke the same victim’s jaw three months later, when his partner was three months pregnant. The woman later required surgery to insert a plate and braces to fix her jaw.

Both Slaters of Heatherhill Square, Graiguecullen, Carlow pleaded guilty at Carlow Circuit Criminal Court to three charges of assault causing harm to the three victims at Heatherhill Square on 28 August of last year. Mr Slater Jnr further pleaded guilty to production of a wooden bat and issuing threats to both his partner and her sister.

He also pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to his partner on 21 October 2024.

Sergeant Ronan Bishop told Miranda Egan-Langley BL, prosecuting, that gardaí were alerted to a domestic incident in August 2024. When they arrived, they could hear male voices telling the gardaí to “f**k off”.

Gardaí forced entry and found Mr Slater Snr and Jnr downstairs. They were arrested. The three victims were upstairs. All three had facial cuts and were bleeding.

Mr Slater Jnr’s partner was later treated for a cut above her left eye, while her sister had a suspected broken nose. The sister’s partner had a wound to his cheek and a cut above his eye.

The men were questioned but that questioning was suspended due to their level of intoxication. They were later interviewed but no admissions were made.

Sgt Bishop accepted that everyone in the house had “consumed intoxicants” but he added that all the victims and the two accused “were capable of holding conversations”.

The court heard that the following October Mr Slater Jnr’s partner was again assaulted by him. He punched her in the head, and when she tried to get to a window to call for help, he pulled her back by the hair and continued to punch her to the face. She later required surgery to treat a broken jaw.

Photographs of her injuries were handed into court. There was no victim impact statement in the case.

Mr Slater Jnr was arrested but made no admission during garda interview.

Tom Kelly BL, defending Mr Slater Jnr, acknowledged that there were a number of aggravating features in the case.

He said his client instructs that he was not aware that his partner was pregnant during the second assault but the prosecuting garda returned to the stand and gave evidence that he was aware of the pregnancy.

Mr Slater Jnr, who has previous convictions for offences, including assault causing harm and assaulting causing serious harm, was on bail for the first offence when he carried out the second attack. He had initially been granted High Court bail, but that bail was revoked when he committed the second assault.

His father had a previous conviction for a sexual assault from 2010, for which he received a six-month suspended sentence. He had not come to garda attention since and had abided by his High Court bail conditions.

Judge O’Kelly said it was “absolutely shocking” that Mr Slater Snr had assaulted a grieving mother and her family during the wake of his own grandchild. He referred to photographs he had been shown of the victims’ injuries and described it as a serious assault.

He said it was “a night of heightened emotion” and said that the mother of the child was in her home “at a time when she should have received support and not violence”.

Judge O’Kelly set a headline sentence of four years before he reduced this to a three-year term, having taken into account Mr Slater Snr’s pleas of guilty and his troubled background. That three-year sentence was suspended in full on strict conditions.

Judge O’Kelly said the case of Mr Slater Jnr was “an entirely different situation”. He said the man had attacked his partner and her family “the night his stillborn child was being waked”. He said it was a violent assault and a weapon was used, before he described Mr Slater Jnr as “a man with a propensity for violence”.

Judge O’Kelly said it was an aggravating feature that the assault was carried out in the context of an intimate partner relationship.

“This man’s life is marked by violent tendencies,” Judge O’Kelly said, before he set headline sentences of six and five years for the assault offences.

He imposed a sentence of four-and-a-half years and a concurrent term of three years and nine months, having taken his guilty plea and “a chaotic dysfunctional and violent childhood” into account.

Judge O’Kelly said the woman was badly beaten in the second assault and referred to the surgery she required.

He said this offence warranted a headline sentence of eight years, which he reduced to six years, having taken into account the mitigating factors, including his plea of guilty.

Judge O’Kelly said the sentences must be consecutive to each other, leading to a sentence of ten-and-a-half years.

He suspended the final four years of the term on strict conditions, including that Mr Slater Jnr engage with the Probation Service for three years.

The sentence was backdated to when Mr Slater Jnr was first remanded in custody last November.