The Enniskillen man had a previous suspended sentence activated
AN ENNISKILLEN father, who was told by a judge he wasn’t fit to be looking after his two year old son has been jailed for six months when he appeared before Fermanagh Magistrates Court.
Eamon Blaise Gallagher (38) from Loane Drive was sentenced to four months in jail for two assaults on police and had a two month suspended prison sentence activated by District Judge John Meehan.
On February 24 this year police were called to a house at Derrin Park in the town over an allegation the defendant wouldn’t allow his son to return to his mother.
The defendant was abusive to police telling them to ‘f*** off’ through a window and he appeared to be drunk.
Polce forced entry to the house and the defendant continued to be aggressive towards police. He struggled with police striking one of them on the shin and when he continued to kick out at police he was arrested for assault.
District Judge Meehan told defence barrister Stefan Rafferty that the police had to effectively break in to the defendant’s house and that he had a two and a three year old in his care at the time.
Judge Meehan said there were clearly child protection issues here due to the fact the defendant was drunk.
“That is a serious risk to two children. Social Services should have been alerted to this (by police),” he said.
The judge said the defendant was drunk and was looking after two vulnerable children.
Mr Rafferty said his client accepted he had alcohol taken and that he was aggressive, indicating his dissatisfaction that police were at his property.
The barrister said his client had consumed alcohol but not to the extent that he couldn’t look after the children. Judge Meehan said this was an ‘insupportable proposition considering the defendant blew a reading of 86mg of alcohol in 100ml of breath, more than twice the legal drink-drive limit.
The defendant was told by the judge he has a litany of incidents of attacking people but he has walked away from virtually all of them. “Not this time” the judge said.
Sentencing the judge said ‘in context of your atrocious record’ he was handing him a four month prison sentence on each of the two assault charges. And by activating the two month suspended sentence for resisting arrest this totalled six months in jail.
The defendant was released on bail of £200 pending appeal of the sentence.
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