A Limerick man who left a schoolboy permanently brain damaged after he “danced on his head” will have a 12 year prison term reduced after the Court of Criminal Appeal ruled that the sentence was excessive.
Adam Fitzgibbon (20) of Lissanalta, Doordoyle, was 18 years old and in the care of the HSE when he attacked the 16 year old schoolboy who was waiting for his mother to collect him at a Corbally Service Station.
Fitzgibbon was being taken to a HSE facility in O’Brien’s Bridge on July 23, 2010 when the social workers he was traveling with stopped at the Service Station. He had been taken into care just hours before the attack.
He saw the schoolboy outside the shop and approached him saying, “You got my friend locked up for life” before launching a violent attack. He punched the victim up to 26 times, kicked and stamped on his head 65 times in an attack that lasted more than five minutes.
He had mistakenly identified the victim as a witness who had given evidence against his friend and convicted murderer, John O’Loughlin, weeks earlier.
Initially charged with attempted murder, Fitzgibbon’s plea of intentionally causing his victim serious harm was accepted by Mr Justice Paul Carney in the Central Criminal Court.
Fitzgibbon told Gardaí that he was “stoned out of his head on vodka and tablets” at the time he was described as “dancing” on the victim’s head.
He was jailed for 15 years with the final three years suspended.
At the Court of Criminal Appeal last week, defence counsel successfully argued against the severity of the sentence on the grounds that Justice Carney was wrong to exclude the consumption of the intoxicants in mitigation.
The three judge appeal court agreed that the judge failed to consider whether the nature of Fitzgibbon’s problems with drink and drugs stemming from his severe dysfunctional background which would have brought the matter outside the type of case where there was a simple reliance on drink or drugs as an excuse.
Fitzgibbon will rely on the submission of his legal team as to what an appropriate sentence should be.
