Judge slams cancer sufferer for using colostomy bag ‘as a weapon' in Garda stations

Sunday World

12 hours ago

The public dressing down came after Eoin O'Neill was also found to have emptied the contents of his colostomy bag in a Garda station
A man suffering from advanced colon cancer who threatened to slice the throat of a service station manager has been slammed by a judge for using his colostomy bag 'as a weapon' when defecating inside a midlands based garda station on three separate occasions.
Judge Bernadette Owens told Eoin O'Neill, of Bloomfield Drive, Athlone his conduct in spreading excrement on a mattress and over the walls of a holding cell at Athlone Garda Station on May 11 and May 12 this year was 'entirely unacceptable'.
That public dressing down came after O'Neill was also found to have emptied the contents of his colostomy bag in the station's custody suite area some two weeks earlier.
O'Neill was brought before a sitting of Athlone District Court where the 60-year-old pleaded guilty to over 20 separate offences between November 2024 and May this year.
The accused, it was revealed, had been on bail for a large number of criminal damage, public order and offensive weapons charges, one of which resulted in a young woman fleeing a public amenity in fear when encountering O'Neill wielding a large kitchen knife.
Eoin O'Neill outside Athlone Courthouse.
Sgt Paul McNally said the woman had been out for a walk at Athlone's Regional Sports Centre on May 11 and in the throes of ordering a coffee while coming across O'Neill sitting on a park bench.
It was at that stage, the court heard O'Neill stabbed the bench while leaving the knife embedded and shouting to his female victim: ''What are you looking at? Do you have a problem with me?'
The hostile nature of the incident, Sgt McNally added, caused the woman who was walking with her sister to flee the scene on foot.
The court also heard details in connection to a litany of public order and criminal damage incidents O'Neill committed at various retail and licenced premises in Athlone between November 2024 and May.
One of those saw the accused enter Applegreen Arcadia Retail Park in Athlone and threaten a female manager.
Sgt McNall said the young woman approached O'Neill shortly before 9am in an attempt to ask him to 'quieten down' as customers came in and out of the service station.
Those attempts, the court heard, fell on deaf ears as O'Neill replied: 'F***off, you are nothing but a bitch,' before threatening to slice the woman's throat and petrol bomb her car.
O'Neill also pleaded guilty to ten additional public order offences, two of which saw the accused walk into Café Nero along the midlands town's John Broderick Street on two separate occasions in November.
Eoin O'Neill.
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The first of those saw O'Neill launch into a tirade of verbal abuse at staff and customers during which he shouted: 'F*** this shit, I am going to crush your skull.'
Just over a week later, O'Neill returned, this time approaching its front counter where he placed a bottle of soap on a desk while shouting at staff: 'You can shove this soap up your arse'.
A little over three weeks later, O'Neill ripped a leaf blower from the hands of his 87-year-old neighbour in the Bloomfield Drive area of the town as the old age pensioner attempted to clean the driveway to his home.
Sgt McNally said the incident, which unfolded shortly after 1pm, resulted in O'Neill swinging the garden tool in the air before throwing it onto the road, causing it to break.
The court was told O'Neill had 43 previous convictions to his name, the majority of which entailed offences for criminal damage, public order and theft.
The most recent of those indiscretions came in June 2023 for drugs possession, Sgt McNally outlined.
In defence, Dara Hayden said his client was someone was very much 'prone to outbursts', behaviour which to those unfamiliar with him could find 'incredibly intimidating'.
He said while a number of offences before the court could be deemed as being of an otherwise 'minor nature', there was little getting away from the two episodes at Applegreen and Athlone's Regional Sports Centre.
Mr Hayden said despite the former perhaps being best described as O'Neill's propensity to make a general 'nuisance' of himself, the conduct shown towards his female victim in the latter incident was particularly unsavoury.
'She didn't believe he had ill will towards her but certainly his behaviour on the day was absolutely despicable,' he told the court.
The local solicitor added how O'Neill had already spent an effective four months in custody, serving two different eight week spells behind bars from December 18 2024 to February 12 2025 and from May 14 to the present day respectively.
He said those stints on remand had been particularly onerous on O'Neill, challenges which had been exacerbated by his inability to obtain any medical treatment for advanced colon cancer.
Mr Hayden implored the court to factor in a suspended element to whatever custodial aspect of sentencing it was considering to provide some 'finality' to O'Neill's current status and allow him access vital oncology services with medics at UCHG.
That address caused O'Neill, himself, to interject and address Judge Owens directly, saying: 'I want to get back to my old life and see my son.'
Judge Owens, in delivering her ruling, noted how the majority of the charges before the court were committed while O'Neill was on bail as she empathised with the medical plight the Athlone man found himself in.
That said, Judge Owens said in spite of those ailments, the court could not overlook a series of offending where O'Neill had used his illness and resultant fitted colostomy bag to carry out further criminal acts.
'There are many people who are living with similar diagnoses and they don't behave in the way Mr O'Neill has behaved.'
Judge Owens said whatever about the difficulties O'Neill faced from a medical perspective, the frequency and number of charges he had since pleaded guilty to were indicative of a man who had used his colostomy bag 'as a weapon', actions she said the court found 'entirely unacceptable'.
O'Neill was consequently sentenced to a four month sentence for one of the criminal damage charges, a term that was marked as 'time served' given the 16 weeks he had already spent in custody.
A further five months was handed down for the Applegreen incident which was marked in the same way as the latter sentence, a term which also directed to run concurrently.
Three further five month sentences, two of which also involved criminal damage offences, were similarly issued in a ruling Judge Owens ordered to commence immediately and to be served in an equally concurrent fashion.
A six month sentence, suspended for 18 months, was likewise handed down for one of the criminal damage incidents O'Neill perpetrated at Athlone Garda Station.
That preceded a further €250 fine payable forthwith in default of three days in prison was also handed down for driving a dangerously defective vehicle at North Gate Street in Athlone on May 8.
A host of accompanying public order, criminal damage and possession of offensive weapons charges were either 'taken into consideration' or struck out.
Judge Owens also made a request for the court to write to prison authorities, urging them to ensure O'Neill received all appropriate medical attention while serving out his sentence.