A Buncrana man has been jailed for three months for what a judge described as ‘an absolutely disgraceful assault’ on his partner.
Francis McDonagh (20), of Earlsfort in Buncrana, admitted the assault which occurred on July 10 last year.
A detective garda told Buncrana District Court that they received a 999 call on that date from the injured party.
When they arrived they found the woman ‘badly cut, bruised, covered in blood with clumps of her hair on her clothes and on the ground.’
The garda said that the woman said the defendant had assaulted her after a domestic dispute.
The officer said he talked to McDonagh who was ‘upset’.
The court was told McDonagh was in ‘an on-off relationship’ with the injured party.
The defendant had 15 previous convictions.
The judge asked the injured party. who was in court, whether she wished to address the court but the woman said she didn’t.
A defence solicitor told the court that McDonagh was ‘known to gardaí’.
He said that McDonagh was brought up in a household that could only be described as ‘not the most conservative household’ and said that it was ‘an abnormal regime’.
He said the injured party and McDonagh had been together for about three years but the defendant had ‘a drug problem’ since he was 16-years-old.
The solicitor said his client was ‘vehemently and fundamentally wrong’ and wished to apologise to the injured party.
He said the incident was a result of McDonagh taking a drug concoction mixing Valium and prescription drugs.
The court was told that ‘there was no excuse for him and none made’ and the solicitor said that his client had no memory of what happened due to the drugs.
He said there would be no contact between the pair in the future and concluded that his client ‘hadn’t been given the best of chances.’
Judge Deirdre Gearty said that the assault was ‘horrendous’ and could not be justified on any account.
She added: “This is an absolutely disgraceful assault on this lady and then to try and ask the court to believe that he did not know what he was doing due to his drug addiction is disgraceful.’
McDonagh was sentenced to three months in prison.