A JEALOUS over-reaction to a playful gesture to a man’s girlfriend saw him punching the other man and breaking his cheekbone in three places.

Sergeant Tom McCarthy said the injured party knew the young woman and when he was passing her in their local GAA club he playfully ruffled her hair. The woman’s boyfriend, 19-year-old Jordan Crowley of 9 Crestfield View, Glanmire, County Cork, took exception to this and punched the young man in the face causing the fractures to his cheekbone.

Judge Brian O’Callaghan said at the sentencing hearing at Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday that Jordan Crowley had come very close to going to prison for the assault.

Instead, the judge imposed an 18-month sentence suspended for a period of five years on condition that the accused would pay the injured party €1,500 each year before December 1. That €7,500 total to be paid is on top of €5,000 which the defendant brought to court yesterday for the victim. He also brought a letter of apology to court for the injured young man.

Jordan Crowley pleaded guilty to the charge that on June 15, 2019, at Sarsfield’s hurling and football club in Glanmire he committed the offence of assault causing harm to another young man.

Judge O’Callaghan said to there was a lot of talk in court about the defendant and the fact that he was never in trouble before or since this incident but the judge said he wanted the victim to know that he was as much in the judge’s considerations as was the defendant.

The judge said the suspension of the sentence was in no way intended to belittle the impact of the injuries on the victim.

Sgt. McCarthy said the injured party said in his victim impact statement that it was a cowardly punch that caused all the damage. He said that when he first saw himself in the mirror afterwards his face was disfigured, his cheek broken in three different places. It had to be completely restructured in hospital.

The victim said that what happened to him had knocked him to the core and had set him back from a position where he had always been a starting player on his team. It has also caused him to worry about something similar happening again.

Defence barrister, Paula McCarthy, said the defendant said he was drunk and “simply lost the plot.” She said he accepted responsibility and expressed remorse.

Both the defendant and the injured party are students.