Castlebar man gets four years for petrol-bomb attack on Garda station

Castlebar man gets four years for petrol bomb attack on Garda station


A Castlebar man has received a four-year jail term after throwing a petrol bomb into Castlebar Garda Station last year.
Mark Maughan (26) of 14, Northbrook, Castlebar pleaded guilty to a charge of arson after he ignited a Budweiser bottle doused in petrol and threw it at the office hatch in the foyer of Castlebar Garda Station shortly after 4am on November 20, 2011. The final year of the sentence is to be suspended.
Sergeant Peter Hanley told Castlebar Circuit Court that he was working on the night and showed the court CCTV footage of the foyer on the night. The court could see that two women had been in the foyer, close to where the bottle was thrown, just two minutes before Maughan arrived. Commenting on this, Judge Thomas O’Donnell said there could have been ‘disastrous consequences’ had the women still been there when the bottle was thrown.
Sergeant Hanley said it was ‘fortunate’ that he was in the front office with colleagues, right behind the hatch where the petrol bomb was thrown, and not further down the station where there was a prisoner in one cell.
A fire took hold almost instantly after the bottle was thrown. The CCTV footage showed a garda using a fire extinguisher to quench the fire seconds later, limiting the damage caused to just €350. Judge O’Donnell praised the quick actions of the gardaí present on the night.
Sergeant Hanley told the court that Maughan had five previous convictions, but added that he ‘didn’t think this was in him’. He added that he knew Maughan and he had been either drinking a lot or taking another substance on the night.
“I would hope, in the right frame of mind, this wouldn’t have happened,” said Sergeant Hanley in response to a question by defending counsel John Hogan that this incident was out of character.
Mr Hogan told the court that Maughan, a married father of three, had been in custody since the incident and, in that time, has attended addiction counselling and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. He was also attempting to finish his Leaving Certificate.
He cited a probation report which described Maughan as being of a ‘moderate’ risk of reoffence and said that Maughan is ‘not a bad-minded person but was simply out of his mind on the night in question’. He said that his client was extremely remorseful for the incident.
Judge O’Donnell described the incident as ‘outrageous, deliberate, reckless and for no apparent reason’. He said the consequences could have been much worse if there had been people in the foyer or if gardaí were not in the public office and able to deal with it quickly. He noted the favourable evidence of Sergeant Hanley but said the court ‘has to take a strong view’.
He sentenced Maughan to four years in prison, backdated to the time of the offence, and suspended the final year on the condition Maughan be of good behaviour for three years post release.