Civil Servant convicted of assaulting farmer at Balla Mart

A Department of Agriculture employee was convicted of assaulting a farmer in Balla Mart after the judge determined that his evidence was not credible.
Patrick Sweeney (62) of 5 Blackfort Close, Castlebar, was convicted of a Section Two assault on Gerry Carney after hitting him at Balla Mart on April 23, 2016.
The case was heard in Achill District Court in May, when Judge Mary Devins heard there had been animosity between the two men for over 30 years. Mr Sweeney denied the allegation and claimed Mr Carney’s description of what occurred as a ‘cock and bull story’.  
However, after reviewing the evidence and considering the matter, Judge Mary Devins said she found that the evidence of the prosecution witnesses to be ‘cogent and entirely credible’. She told last week’s sitting of Castlebar District Court that Mr Sweeney’s evidence did not strike her as credible, and she convicted him of the offence.
Referencing the animosity between the two men, Judge Devins said that the incident at the mart was not a private case between them and was prosecuted on behalf of society and the State.

Prank call
Gerry Carney (49) told Achill District court he was at the mart and was walking past various cattle pens when Patrick Sweeney swung a gate open and hit him on his left shoulder. He said he was stunned and said to Mr Sweeney ‘Ya thick c*** ya’ but kept walking. He said he was then tripped by Mr Sweeney and almost fell over.
He said Mr Sweeney was laughing at him and said ‘You’re tripping’, to which Mr Carney replied ‘Not as good as your trip to Connemara’. The court heard that Mr Carney was referring to a ‘wild goose chase’ to Connemara that Mr Sweeney and his son had been sent on after they received a prank call from a man pretending to be interested in buying cattle from the Sweeneys.
Mr Carney said that after the Connemara comment, Mr Sweeney was ‘frothing at the mouth’ and that he was afraid of him. Mr Carney said that Mr Sweeney then came alongside him and elbowed him in the jaw. According to Mr Carney, Mr Sweeney’s son Fergus then came along and stood between his father and Mr Carney to stop the incident.
Mr Carney said he reported the incident to the mart manager and subsequently to the Gardaí.
Mr Carney said that the ill feeling between himself and Mr Sweeney went back 32 years, to when Mr Carney was 17. He claimed that back then, Sweeney had threatened to pull him down a field and throw him into a river.
The court heard of other incidents, such as gardaí being called by Mr Carney who claimed that Mr Sweeney was deliberately blocking access to his lands with his jeep. In another  incident, Carney opened a gate on his land to the main public road on the Newport Road in Castlebar after Sweeney’s cattle had strayed into his field.

Wild cow
Explaining the Balla Mart incident, Mr Sweeney said that he had seen Willie Faherty ushering a ‘wild cow’ and had opened a gate to get the cow into a pen when his back inadvertently collided with Mr Carney. This was the only physical contact between them, he said, adding that allegation of assault as put by Mr Carney was ‘a fabricated cock and bull story’.
Defending solicitor Tom Walsh put it to Mr Carney that on the day of the alleged Balla assault, the mart gate had been opened to help to pen the wild cow and that Mr Sweeney did not assault Mr Carney. “That’s crazy,” Mr Carney replied.
Oliver Carney, Gerry Carney’s brother, told the court he saw Patrick Sweeney hit his brother with the gate, trip him and then elbow him and that he went over to intervene. Willie Faherty told the court he was present on the day. He said he saw Mr Sweeney hit Mr Carney with the gate and then shove Mr Carney, but stood back when Oliver Carney went over to intervene and said he did not see the elbow incident.
Patrick Sweeney told the court that he is a farmer and works full-time with the Department of Agriculture in their Wildlife Services, with responsibility for the culling of badgers.
Fergus Sweeney said he was with his father on the day in question but was not present when the incident started. He came over from another area of the mart at the end of it, he said, telling his father ‘Don’t be wasting your time’.
In closing, defending solicitor Tom Walsh argued that Mr Faherty, who must have had a clear view, saw no elbow and insisted that Patrick Sweeney was opening the gate for safety reasons.
Inspector Gary Walsh said in closing that there was no evidence from anyone else, including Mr Faherty, of Mr Sweeney’s account of a wild cow, that could justify any incident with the opening of a gate.
After Judge Devins gave her verdict, the court heard that Mr Sweeney had no previous convictions and was a married man with four grown up children. Mr Walsh asked Judge Devins to be lenient.
She fined Mr Sweeney €500 and also ordered him to pay a compensation order of €750 to Mr Carney. Recognisance was fixed in the event of an appeal.