Bangor farmer found guilty of assaulting neighbour

Bangor farmer found guilty of assaulting neighbour


Victim claims neighbouring farmers are ‘cuckoo farmers’

A 39-year-old farmer from Bangor Erris has been found guilty of assaulting his neighbour after a row over sheep encroaching on lands got out of control.
John McNeely of Briska, Bangor Erris, pleaded not guilty to the assault of ¡his neighbour, John Leneghan, on Mr Leneghan’s lands at Briska on April 11, 2013.
Mr Leneghan told Belmullet District Court on Wednesday last that he was rounding up his sheep on a quad bike, due to recent hip surgery, on the date in question and he noticed a sheep and a lamb belonging to his neighbours, the McNeelys, were in with his sheep and so he used his sheepdog to send the sheep back into the McNeely’s lands.
He said while he was doing this MicheΡl McNeely started ‘roaring’ and came down to him, followed by his brother John.
Mr Leneghan said John McNeely climbed over the fence, held the handlebars of the quad and started hitting Mr Leneghan in the shoulders. Mr Leneghan said there was not huge force in the blows, describing them as ‘football style digs’. He said McNeely prevented him from going back to his house.
He told the court he contacted gardaí a short time before this as MicheΡl McNeely was preparing to dig up the road leading to Leneghan’s house and that tensions were ‘high’ between them.
He claimed that the McNeelys’ sheep had ‘overrun my property’ and said ‘I was being bullied and intimidated by cuckoo farmers’, which he said is a term for farmers who have too many sheep on their own property and use other farmers lands to farm.
It was put to Mr Leneghan by Tom Walsh, defending solicitor, that his dog had ‘terrorised’ the McNeelys’ sheep and had ‘sunk its teeth’ into the sheep. Mr Leneghan said ‘that’s not my recollection’, adding that ‘I know my dog, he’s not a wild mongrel’.
The court heard that the McNeelys had helped Mr Leneghan and his wife in years gone by, especially when Mr Leneghan went to England to work and Mr Walsh put it to him that he clearly ‘had some gripe’ with the McNeelys.
“I’m 64 years of age. My gripe is with being bullied, intimidated and assaulted while disabled,” he replied.
“I had to do something which I didn’t have to do in inner city London and that’s install CCTV cameras at my house in rural Ireland,” added Mr Leneghan.
He added ‘if they were concerned about the welfare of their animals, they certainly weren’t concerned for my welfare’.
John McNeely told the court he had been ‘very friendly’ with John Leneghan for years, saying ‘I’d do anything for that man’. He claimed that Mr Leneghan’s dog was ‘savaging’ their sheep on the date in question, at which stage he ran down to him to ask him why he was allowing this.
He denied holding the quad bike and said it was Leneghan who was the aggressor.
“I can’t stop a quad, I’m not Superman … He had a crowbar over his head and he slammed it down three times. He effed me out of it and abused me. It was like he was possessed by the devil. I was in fear for my life. There was froth rolling down his face,” said McNeely.
He said he and his family had brought Mr Leneghan ‘up and down to hospital’ and that he did all the farmwork for the Leneghans when John Leneghan was working in England. He said ‘I might have put a hand on his shoulders but I didn’t hit him’.
MicheΡl McNeely told the court that he saw the entire incident and that ‘my brother never left a hand on him’ and said if his brother ‘didn’t jump back he’d have got hit on the side of the head’ with a crowbar he said John Leneghan was swinging.
Gabriel Reilly, a driver for Frank Brogan Limited in Bangor, told the court he was delivering feed to the McNeelys when the incident happened and said he did not see John McNeely hit John Leneghan.
Judge Victor Blake said he accepted the prosecution evidence. He said it was ‘an unfortunate matter’. He convicted John McNeely and fined him €400. Recognances were fixed in the event of an appeal.