Warrant issued for arrest of 28-year-old woman after daytime street assault in Cork

A bench warrant has been issued for the arrest of a 28-year-old woman who has just been convicted of assault causing harm to another young woman outside her home on Bandon Road in the middle of the day.

Michaela Butler, who lives at an apartment at The Hollies, Magazine Road, Cork, failed to show up at Cork District Court and was convicted of assault in her absence.

Sarah Mulcahy testified that she was at home at Bandon Road in Cork at lunchtime on April 24, 2021. She said her partner, Tony Hipwell, went out to his van to get his phone and when he was a while returning, she went out to see what was happening.

She said he was being confronted by a man and woman and that there was what she described as “very hostile shouting and profanities”.

“As I pulled the front door back a lady lunged at me," Sarah Mulcahy said at Cork District Court. "I tried to protect my face. She slapped my face on my right side. She took her hand from her pocket.

“I was pulled down on the footpath. The lady attacked me, tearing my hair and assaulting me. I think there were bystanders who helped me and I phoned 999.

“I made a recording at the front door. I was attacked following the recording," she added. 

“I have a permanent scar on the right side of my face. I lost the vision in my right eye for three weeks to a month."

Garda Vincent McCarthy said he responded to a call to 86 Bandon Road on that day about people engaging in a violent incident.

He directed Michaela Butler and the man with her, Luke Hayes, 27, of no fixed address, to leave the area and they did.

Luke Hayes pleaded guilty to engaging in an affray. Judge Marian O’Leary gave him a three-month suspended jail term for his part in the incident.

The judge convicted Michaela Butler – in her absence - of assault causing harm to Ms Mulcahy and issued a warrant for her arrest so that she could be brought to court for sentencing.

Garda McCarthy said that the young woman did attend at the Bridewell garda station the day after the incident on Bandon Road.

Ms Butler said she and Luke Hayes went for a walk to the offlicence. She said in a memo of interview that she got into an altercation with Ms Mulcahy. 

Michaela Butler added, “It wasn’t pretty but I got over it.” 

Judge O’Leary said that on the basis of the evidence, the cautioned memo of interview with the defendant, and the recording of the incident made on the telephone, she was convicting Michaela Butler of assault causing harm.