Woman stabbed her friend twice in the breast
Carlow courthouse Photo: Michael O'Rourke
“WHAT you did to your friend was a nasty, vicious assault as a result of being drunk. There’s no point in calling her your friend. Locking yourself away, drinking, will not help,” said Judge Eugene O’Kelly in Carlow Circuit Court on Friday to defendant Sandra Doyle.
Ms Doyle was before the court to be sentenced for stabbing her friend twice in her breast in a row over a mobile phone.
The defendant, with an address at Church Street, Graigueucllen, pleaded guilty at the July sitting of the circuit court to assaulting the woman, causing her harm and to producing an article, namely a blade, during a dispute at New Oak Estate, Carlow on 10 September 2021.
Judge O’Kelly was told that 51-year-old Ms Doyle had accused the injured party of stealing her phone and had gone to her house in New Oak Estate to get it back. The injured party told gardaí that Ms Doyle pushed her and that she turned away from her, but when she turned back Ms Doyle had a knife, stabbing her twice with it.
A witness told gardaí that Ms Doyle threatened to kill the injured party if she didn’t give her back her phone and that after Ms Doyle stabbed the injured party, she saw her breast tissue “hanging out”.
The court heard that the woman sustained a 7cm laceration to her left breast and a 10cm wound under her right breast.
Ms Doyle admitted to gardaí that she hit the injured party “once or twice with the knife”, using a swinging motion rather than a stabbing motion.
Judge O’Kelly had adjourned sentencing Ms Doyle so that a probation report could be prepared, and last week defence counsel Tara Geoghegan told him that her client had come on in “leaps and bounds” since engaging with the Probation Service. Ms Geoghegan continued that Ms Doyle and the injured party had been friends for years and that Ms Doyle had since written to her to apologise for stabbing her.
Ms Geoghegan continued that the defendant had been upset at the injured party for taking the phone because there were pictures of her late brother, who had died in custody, and her late father on the phone. She said that Ms Doyle’s family were very well known to the gardaí.
“Criminality has been entrenched in her life and has been since she was a young age,” said Ms Geoghegan.
The court also heard that the defendant had mental health and addiction problems, that she is now on a methadone programme and that the Probation Service has organised a full programme of care for her.
Ms Geoghegan said that Ms Doyle had “complex mental health problems” but that she was now living independently in her own home, which she was afraid of losing if she was sent to prison. She also said that her client “did not do well in prison”.
Judge O’Kelly replied that, according to the probation report, Ms Doyle was “drinking a bottle of vodka several times a week, taking medication and washing it down with vodka”. He also noted that the defendant had 24 previous convictions and that the “easiest thing of all would be to put her into prison to dry her out”.
“She’s 51 years of age and instead of trying to do something, she’s locked herself up in her house as a recluse, drinking and sending people out to do her shopping.” When Ms Geoghegan told Judge O’Kelly that Ms Doyle had started to attend AA meetings, he said that he wanted to hear direct evidence of that from her.
Ms Doyle told the judge that she did not leave her house because she “was afraid of bumping into people” and that she had begun attending AA meetings the previous week.
Judge O’Kelly said he would finalise sentencing Ms Doyle at the next sitting of the circuit court in February next year and ordered an updated doctor’s report to focus on Ms Doyle’s issues with alcohol.
