A YOUNG man was ‘foaming at the mouth’ when he was arrested for threatening to ‘beat up’ gardaí who found him shirtless and shouting abuse in a street.
friend Cullen (22), who then headbutted the window of a patrol car as he was taken away, admitted the facts of the case ‘made him look like a thug “, said a court.
He was given a two-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 200 euros for breaching public order.
Cullen, of Stralem Crescent, Ongar, pleaded guilty to public intoxication, threatening, abusive and insulting behavior, and violent behavior at a guard station. Dublin District Court heard gardaí were patrolling O’Connell Street Upper on June 21 last year when they saw the defendant acting aggressively towards the public.
Cullen clenched his fists and waved them in people’s faces. When Garda James O’Shaughnessy spoke to him, Cullen immediately became verbally abusive, calling the officer a “muppet” and telling him to “f**k off”.
Garda Darren Hynes was called to the Coultry area in Ballymun on August 8, 2020.
Cullen had taken off his shirt, was acting aggressive, shouting into his phone, “You’re a rat.”
He said to the garda, “What the fuck do you want? I’m going to beat you all.” He held out his arms threateningly and was arrested.
Cullen was foaming at the mouth and his eyes were wide. He headbutted the window of the patrol car while inside and continued to threaten the gardaí in the post.
Cullen was “desperately sorry,” his attorney Mervyn Harnett said.
Going through the evidence, Cullen remarked that “it made him look like a thug.”
When he was younger, Cullen began abusing alcohol and drugs, and it continued into adulthood, Mr Harnett said. At the time of the offences, he “derailed”.
Cullen’s behavior appears to have been caused by “an intoxicant of a certain description,” Judge Bryan Smyth said.
