'We will never be able to forget this event': Vulnerable Cork teen attacked by stranger

THE Bandon family of a vulnerable teenager have been left to wonder how a 38-year-old stranger could come into their home on a Sunday afternoon and carry out an unprovoked attack on the boy — the violent crime only ending when a neighbour punched the intruder until he stopped choking the young victim.

Joseph Kelly of Lower Ardan, Bandon, County Cork, pleaded guilty to the charge of assault causing harm to the 18-year-old and causing criminal damage to the house.

Sergeant Kevin Heffernan said the accused had been drinking all of the previous night and also took a gram of cocaine, did not sleep, and resumed drinking from noon until 4.30pm on the day of the violent attack on August 27 2023.

Defence barrister Caroline O’Connell said at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on Tuesdaythat Kelly literally did not know where he was due to his level of intoxication and that, when he was put out of the house, he phoned the gardaí himself and waited outside to be arrested.

Sgt Heffernan confirmed that, adding that others also phoned the gardaí.

Victim impact statement 

The victim’s mother said in a victim impact statement that her son is on the autism spectrum and that this attack had set back an awful lot of progress the teenager had made over the years.

She said her son’s younger sister showed great heroism that day, phoning her mother and the gardaí for help which resulted in a neighbour running to the scene and intervening. The boy’s mother said she’s left contemplating that she could have been left “without my beautiful son” but for her neighbour’s intervention.

“I would also like to thank the gardaí for their help, swift arrival and sensitivity [to her son’s additional needs]. They do brilliant work and in this case helped to save my son’s life.

“The job of a parent is to keep their children safe and I have always tried my best for my family,” she said in the victim statement. “That day, the safety of our lives was shattered in a brutal, unprovoked attack on my vulnerable son.

“As a family, we will never be able to forget this event. We trust that justice will be done so that no other family would ever have to go through such a traumatic event at the hands of this man.”

Unprovoked attack 

Sgt Heffernan said the woman who made the victim impact statement had gone for a walk with the family dog at around 6pm that sunny Sunday afternoon leaving her 18-year-old son and his sister for the few minutes of the walk.

When Joseph Kelly let himself into their family home he didn’t know them and the damage he caused and the attack he carried out on the teenager was unprovoked.

As well as two black eyes, cuts, bruises, and a broken arm, the teenage victim suffered very badly in psychological terms, losing confidence in staying at home alone, becoming hypervigilant about home security, and suffering nightmares and flashbacks.

Ms O’Connell BL said Kelly’s family raised €2,000 in compensation which was handed over. She said he expressed remorse and had written a letter of apology as well as signing a guilty plea at the earliest opportunity.

Quoting from the record of his interview with gardaí, Kelly said: “I don’t know why I was in the house. Poor man. Lovely family.”

Judge Helen Boyle was told of a deeply traumatic event experienced by Kelly a year before with the death of his mother.

Joseph Kelly was remanded in custody until February 21 when Judge Boyle will sentence him.