BY DAVID FORSYTHE
A WOMAN who assaulted a love rival and directed a ‘tirade of abuse’ at gardaí received a conditional discharge at a recent sitting of Macroom District Court.
Insp Anthony Harrington told the court that gardaí were called to a disturbance at a house near the village of Kilmurry last October 23rd.
Garda Tom Daly said that a call was received alleging an assault had occurred at a residence near Kilmurry and he arrived with a colleague at 11.30pm.
Garda Daly said that he observed a large amount of debris strewn across the road in front of the house including clothes, tins of food, and household goods.
He said: ‘Sitting in the middle of it was a scantily clad lady in her bare feet smoking a cigarette’.
The woman was later identified as Kelly Mayze, 42, of Coolduff, Kilmurry. When Garda Daly asked Ms Mayze to explain the situation she replied: ‘Go f**k yourself.’
Garda Daly said that Ms Mayze stood up and then fell over and began to ‘lash out with her fists’. He said that there was a strong smell of alcohol and of cannabis and she was verbally abusive to him and his colleague.
On entering the house Garda Daly said he found in a downstairs bedroom a ‘very frightened lady with two small children’.
He added: ‘She seemed very frightened and she did not have very good English. The gist of it seemed to be that someone had assaulted her.’
Garda Daly said that he then had to leave the house to assist his colleague outside. When he returned to the front of the house Ms Mayze was trying to climb in a window and was exposing herself in the process as his colleague was trying to restrain her.
Garda Daly formed the opinion that Ms Mayze was intoxicated to such an extent that she posed a danger to herself and others and he arrested her and handcuffed her for her own safety.
She was brought to Macroom Garda Station where her behaviour was described as very disruptive.
The court also heard from prosecution witness Nessa Keane, the alleged injured party.
Ms Keane who spoke via a Spanish interpreter told the court she was originally from Peru but had been in Ireland for 16 years.
She said she was the mother of two small children whose father was James Keane who lived in the house with her and Kelly Mayze at the time of the incident.
She explained that she was married to Mr Keane but they were no longer together and that Mr Keane and Ms Mayze were in a relationship at the time.
She told the court that on the night in question she had received an abusive text message from Ms Mayze and she went to her room to ask her about it.
Ms Keane said that Ms Mayze ‘started shouting and acting like a drunk’ and was very aggressive towards her.
She said that she grabbed a shirt that she had tied around her waist shouting ‘that’s my boyfriend’s shirt’.
She said that Ms Mayze pushed her and shouted abuse at her before going downstairs and ‘throwing everything from the kitchen out into the street’.
Ms Keane said that her children were very distressed and were crying and ‘hiding in the corner’ of the room.
She said that she was very frightened herself and decided to call the gardaí.
Defence solicitor Patrick Goold said that Mr Keane had a ‘very confusing way’ of dealing with the two women.
He described the domestic situation in the house as ‘a tinderbox’ and said that his client was adamant there was no physical assault.
Kelly Mayze told the court that it was Mr Keane who she was angry at on the night and claimed that she had argued with Ms Keane for ‘less than 10 seconds’ before she went downstairs.
Judge James McNulty said that he considered Ms Keane’s evidence to be truthful and believable while that of Kelly Mayze was unreliable as she was clearly intoxicated on the night in question. He said that he found the assault charge proven.
He added: ‘She was intoxicated with alcohol and possibly weed, she was seated, sparsely dressed in the debris in the road, she admitted she was very cross. As Father Dougal would say “that’s mad Ted”.’
The court heard that Kelly Mayze had no previous convictions and had spent the previous seven days remanded in custody following an outburst in court at an earlier hearing.
Judge McNulty said that in the circumstances a conditional discharge would be appropriate. He said that the assault was at the ‘very low end of the scale’ adding: ‘She has been in Limerick Prison for seven days and that’s not much fun. The situation she found herself in was not of her making. She reacted badly with drink taken and weed on board. It would be harsh to record a conviction.’
Kelly Mayze was released on a three-year conditional discharge with the provision that she agrees to be a good citizen and does not come to further garda attention.
