A Munster Senior League soccer player told gardaí during a drunken incident they couldn’t do anything to him because “I am a soccer player at a very high level.” 

29-year-old Jamie O’Brien of 50 Plunkett Road, Ballyphehane, Cork, came to the attention of gardaí on September 13 2021 at Connolly Road, Ballyphehane, Cork. 

Sergeant Gearóid Davis said at Cork District Court that Garda Shane Hayes and colleagues arrived at the scene and found Jamie O’Brien in a highly intoxicated condition.

Sgt Davis said, 

“He was verbally abusive and he said to the guards that they could not do anything to him, saying, ‘I am a soccer player at a very high level. Where is the c*** who said I kicked her wing mirror?’” 

The accused man pleaded guilty to being drunk and a source of danger and engaging in threatening and abusive behaviour. He had six previous convictions for being drunk and a danger and five for threatening behaviour.

Judge Colm Roberts noted that the accused had been fined previously and had not stopped offending. 

“Fines are a waste of time with this man. He got fines before and he continues to cause this trouble,” he said.

Diarmuid Kelleher, solicitor, said the accused was six months off alcohol and was addressing this issue as well as actively working.

The judge imposed a jail term of two months suspended on condition that he keeps the peace and is of good behaviour for two years.

Judge Roberts asked if the accused was deluding himself when he said he is a soccer player at a very high level. 

Mr Kelleher said, “He plays Munster Senior League.” Judge Roberts said, “Highish level.”