by Andrew Carey
A COUSIN of Olympic boxer John Joe Nevin has told Limerick Circuit Court of how he was attacked by a man with a Stanley knife and pepper sprayed as he was waiting to set up his stall at a market in Kilmallock.
Denis Hanafin, (35) of Curry, Athlone Road, Longford pleaded not guilty to assaulting causing harm to Timothy Nevin and to producing a knife during the course of a dispute at the Golden Vale Mart in Kilmallock during the early hours of the October bank holiday in 2013.
Mr Nevin of Castlemartin Green, Bettystown, Co Meath said he was set upon as he waited for a break in the heavy rain that had prevented him from setting up his stall.
He told the jury of seven men and five women that he travels around the country to a variety of markets where he trades goods including “tools, drills and socket sets and other bits”.
He arrived at the Kilmallock mart on Sunday October 27, 2013 some time between 7:30 and 8pm.
After meeting his brother Thomas and nephew John Joe, he passed the accused’s stall and Mr Hanafin asked “were you looking for me?”.
” I replied ‘Well, I wasn’t looking for you’ and next thing I felt a sharp down the back of my head – like I was cut. I didn’t exactly know who done it. I turned around and Denis Hanafin cut me across my face. Then he pepper-sprayed me,” the 41-year-old father-of-three said.
“I couldn’t see anything. Then he grabbed me and started digging and cutting me with a blade across my back. He then said he was going to kill me,” Mr Nevin added.
Gardaí arrived at the scene but Mr Nevin declined to make a statement saying that he “was in no state to do it” and also refused to be taken to hospital by ambulance.
He washed his face in Lucozade and told his brother what happened before driving to his sister’s house in Portlaoise.
Cross examined by defence counsel Lorcan Connolly, he said he attended other marts around the country and that he was a regular trader in Kilmallock.
He denied inviting the accused man to the pub in Kilmallock “for a few pints” on the Sunday night when he and the other traders arrived at the mart. He also denied being involved in a disturbance involving a number of people with weapons, shouting and roaring and waving iron bars.
Mr Connolly also put it to Mr Nevin that there was “history” between the Hanafin and the Nevin families, but Timothy Nevin said that it didn’t involve him.
He also denied that there was a “mystery in the background” and that Denis Hanafin was implicated in something he didn’t do.
The trial continues before Judge Tom O’Donnell at Limerick Circuit Court.
