Wrong place, wrong time

Stab victim in ‘wrong place at wrong time’


Eight year jail term handed out in Circuit Court

Anton McNulty

A teenager who sustained life- threatening injuries in an unprovoked stabbing in Westport thought about ending his life following the attack on March 16, 2013, a court has heard.
In a victim-impact statement, which was read to Castlebar Circuit Court last week after Shane Naughton was found guilty of stabbing him, Henry Newham, who was 16 years old at the time of the incident, said the attack had destroyed his life and the lives of his family. He said that he has been unable to forget the attack and get on with normal life, and that he ‘never will completely’.
Before the stabbing, Mr Newham (now aged 17) was a keen rugby player, Gaelic footballer and hurler who played on the Mayo team. Now, however, he does not have the ‘stamina, energy or confidence’ to play. ‘I am not that person anymore and probably never will be’, he said.
Mr Newham, who attends school in Westport, was 16 at the time of the attack, and he described how he went from being an ordinary secondary school lad to being depressed and harbouring suicidal thoughts.

Support
“My parents were a great source of support. My sister had a baby a month after this event. This should have therefore been a happy time for us. It was completely taken over by me and my feelings and how to get me back to ‘normal’, but nobody could help my feelings of depression and despair that had destroyed me, my life and that of my family. I could see no way out of this and on occasion wondered how to end my life.
“I attended school, when I was physically able, because my parents forced me to, but I sat in each class staring at the floor. Either that or picking an argument with the teachers. So much so that I was referred to a child agency, known as The Edge Project, to deal with my aggression. Myself and my parents had to meet with a project worker every week for ten months to try and alter my behaviour.
“I was restless at home and couldn’t sit or stand still. I would walk from one room to another or to my friend’s house next door. I felt a bit more settled in the company of friends, but relied on my parents dropping and collecting me from them. This could be at four in the morning as I wasn’t settled enough to sleep.” he said.
Mr Newham said he realised the attack on him was not personal and that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, he said that since the attack he is aware of people whispering and pointing at him. Westport is ‘too small a town for such a thing to happen and not be known’, he said, adding that this makes him ‘cross, agitated, upset and annoyed’.
Added to this, he said, he has been left with scars. Along with surgical scars all the way down his abdomen, he also has ‘ugly jagged, large scars’ on his back and lower arm.
Mr Newham has also suffered from flashbacks of the events, and he went through a number of months of not sleeping or waking ‘in a sweat’.
He concluded the statement by saying, “I didn’t deserve any of this, but I am lucky to be alive.”

Grateful family
Speaking after his son’s attacker was jailed last week, Henry’s father Ian Newham said his family are happy to see justice being done, and added that while the last two years have been extremely difficult for his family, they now hope to be able close this chapter in their lives and are looking to the future. He described the events of March 16, 2013, and subsequently, as ‘a worst nightmare for every parent and family’, and was keen to thank the Gardaí for the ‘hard work they put into what was not an easy investigation’, and also the young people of Westport who had supported Henry after his ordeal.
He also mentioned those who had been involved in the trial, and had given evidence, something he said was ‘a difficult thing for them to have done’.

Elsewhere on mayonews.ie
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