Natasha O'Brien reveals how she tracked down Cathal Crotty after vicious attack
Natasha O'Brien has revealed how she managed to track down Cathal Crotty after he viciously assaulted her.
Crotty, who was a member of the Defence Forces, was jailed for two years after beating Ms O'Brien unconscious in Limerick in 2022, when she challenged him for shouting homophobic abuse.
His initial sentence, which was fully suspended, caused public outcry, with the DPP saying that his sentence was unduly lenient. He was then re-sentenced to two years in prison.
Speaking ahead of a documentary about her ordeal, Ms O'Brien said that she was always determined to see Crotty brought to justice, and that a friend of hers who witnessed the attack recognised one of the men who were with Crotty at the time of the assault. Natasha O'Brien has revealed how she managed to track down Cathal Crotty after he viciously assaulted her. Pic: Fran Veale
'My friend that was with me recognised one of the males in that group,' Ms Crotty told Pat Kenny. 'That was the beginning.'
Ms O'Brien then spoke about how she and her friends tracked down who assaulted her after going through the man's photos, until eventually a photo with Crotty appeared — and they knew they had their man.
'We spent weeks, we went into this individual's profiles, we went into all his tagged photos,' she said. ' All his friends, all their friends, all their tagged photos. [We] kept going systematically for anyone that might have resembled my attacker and that's when we came across a group photo with my attacker in the middle smiling.' Cathal Crotty was sentenced to two years in prison after the Appeals Court ruled that his original, fully suspended sentence was too lenient. Pic: Collins
Crotty initially told Gardaí that he had been attacked first by Ms O'Brien, but admitted what he did when he was shown CCTV of the incident. He also bragged about assaulting Ms O'Brien on Snapchat, boasting 'two to put her down, two to put her out.'
Crotty was originally given a three year fully suspended sentence for assault causing harm, with judge Tom O'Donnell saying that if he were to receive a custodial sentence, his career with the army would have been 'over.' Crotty was later discharged by the army.
The DPP filed that Crotty had been given an unduly lenient sentence, and the Appeals Court later agreed, sentencing Crotty to three years, with the final year suspended. Ms O'Brien said that she tracked down who attacked her after a friend of her's who was with her on the night of the assault recognised one of the men Crotty was with. Pic: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie
Reflecting on what she had been put through, Ms O'Brien said that the original fully suspended sentence was the 'true injustice.'
'The sentencing judge explained that if I give this individual a custodial sentence then he will lose his job in the Defence Forces,' she said. 'I had read my victim impact statement, I explained about how I'd lost everything, I'd had to move back home to my mother's house at 23.
'I'm now on illness benefit because I'm too unwell to work… and this is all as a result of this individual's actions. Yet you [the judge] are trying to save his job? That's not justice.'
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