A 21-YEAR-old woman has shown that it is possible to turn life away from crime or its associations by taking the initiative to educate and rehabilitate.
Sarah O’Keefe was before Judge Eamon O’Brien when accused of attempting to bite members of the emergency service as they attended to her while lying on the street, helpless and heavily intoxicated.
Having had her case first heard in mid October, Ms O’Keefe, originally from County Limerick, and who, as described by her solicitor, took a wrong path, having suffered from mental health issues which she attempted to handle, turned to a life of addiction and embroiled and associated herself with unsuitable company.
Ms O’Keefe, however, had offered the court her extraordinary story and her efforts and choices taken to turn her life around.
This was something that Judge Eamon O’Brien originally gave credit for.
At an earlier sitting, the court heard that Ms O’Keefe had a number of previous convictions and that she was found lying on the street last May in a bad way after a bout of drinking fuelled by her addiction.
Judge O’Brien had noted that it was indeed “outrageous behaviour” for Ms O’Keefe to attack the people out to help her.
Her solicitor, Darach McCarthy, told the judge that Ms O’Keefe made some extraordinary efforts to immediately change her ways.
He told the court that Ms O’Keefe, in an effort to take matters in hand and not let her life spiral further out of control, sought to overcome her position as a “woman mistreated”.
She immediately disassociated herself with the company she was in, signed up, voluntarily, for a care and rehabilitation programme at Knocklee House, Tralee, and embarked and attained a FETAC level 5 qualification in care assistance.
Furthermore, Mr McCarthy told the court that his client was now sober and that she had enrolled and started a “degree course in social working at a Community College in Tralee”.
References and letters outlining her recent success in completing courses and rehabilitation were submitted to the court.
Judge O’Brien noted that “not everyone comes from a good background,” and that it was inexcusable behaviour, but he did give credit for the efforts made, and was moved to see that Ms O’Keefe was changing her ways.
Ms O’Keefe had been ordered to engage with the Probation Services and for them to furnish the court with an independent report to support or refute the co-operation and efforts made.
The matter was returned to court last week and defence solicitor Mr McCarthy, noted that the report was one of the most positive he had ever seen, and that it was clear that the work down by Ms O’Keefe was “extraordinary and genuine”.
The recommendation of the “exceptional report” was that Ms O’Keefe be bound to the Probation Services for a period of six months and that she engage and co-operate with them at all times.
