LIMERICK star hurler Kyle Hayes will have to wait until at least March to find out if he is going to jail for his conviction for violent disorder at a Limerick nightclub.
A two-year suspended sentence was imposed on the All-Star winning hurler, (26), in March 2024, after he was convicted in December 2023 of two counts of engaging in violent disorder at the Icon nightclub, Limerick City, on October 28, 2019.
Today, (Monday) the five-time All-Ireland winning hurler appeared before Limerick Circuit Criminal Court for re-entry of the violent disorder suspended sentence which was triggered after Hayes was convicted of dangerous driving at Mallow District Court last September.
Hayes’ barrister, senior counsel, Brian McInerney, appearing with Liam Carroll BL and instructed by solicitor Sarah Ryan, told Limerick Circuit Court that the suspended sentence matter could not be heard on this occasion because Hayes was appealing his dangerous driving conviction, which has to be heard first.
“The Section 99 was triggered by Mr Hayes’s road traffic conviction in Cork which is under appeal and has been adjourned to the week of March 11th, so it cannot go ahead today,” Mr McInerney told Judge Michael P Walsh.
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Padraig Mawe, State Solicitor for Limerick City, told the court he had no difficulty with the Section 99 re-entry case being adjourned until after Mr Hayes’s appeal in Cork is finalised.
Judge Walsh remanded Hayes, who sat alone in the courtroom, on continuing bail to appear before Limerick Circuit Criminal Court, on the suspended sentence for violent disorder, on March 19th.
The 6ft 5 inch Limerick half-back left the court walking with a limp after he sustained an injury playing for the Shannonsiders in their defeat of Munster rivals Tipperary in a national hurling league fixture held at the Gaelic Grounds on Sunday.
Hayes’ appeal against his dangerous driving conviction will be heard before Cork Circuit Criminal Court.
In March 2024, the Kildimo-Pallaskenry clubman, who was controversially shortlisted for Hurler of the Year 2024, was sentenced to a fully suspended two-year sentence for engaging in violence outside the Icon nightclub.
Hayes, who at the time had no previous convictions, was given a concurrent 18-month suspended sentence for engaging in violent disorder inside the nightclub. He was found not guilty of assault causing harm to self-employed carpenter, Cillian McCarthy, at the nightclub, on the same night.
Hayes, of Ballyashea, Kildimo, Co Limerick, who had contested all of the charges, was ordered to pay Mr McCarthy €10,000 in compensation for loss of earnings and injuries he sustained on the night.
Limerick hurling manger John Kiely who gave a character reference for Hayes at Hayes’s initial sentencing hearing in 2023, had asked Judge Dermot Sheehan not to jail his star defender. “Every young man deserves a chance,” Mr Kiely then told the judge.
Cillian McCarthy told Hayes’ trial that he had to have surgery to repair a fractured bone in the socket of his right eye, and he said he had also suffered bruising, severe headaches, blurred vision and psychological trauma.
Judge Sheehan suspended the terms of Hayes’s sentence on condition he did not offend within a two-year period.
However, last September Hayes was convicted of dangerous driving by Judge Colm Roberts at Mallow District Court, another case contested by the hurler.
Hayes had offered a plea to a lesser offence of careless driving, however Judge Roberts said he did not accept this, and he convicted Hayes of one count of dangerous driving on the N20 Cork Limerick road, on July 14 last.
Judge Roberts also disqualified Hayes from driving for two years and fined him €250.
Mallow courthouse heard Hayes had driven 150kmh in a 100kmh speed-limit zone at Lissavoura, Grenagh, near Mallow, on the day.
Garda Deirdre Barrett told the court she had observed Hayes’s 191-registered white Audi A6 overtaking nine other vehicles at high speed on approach to a section of the road which narrows from two lanes to one lane.
When she pulled the car over Hayes was in the driver’s seat carrying a passenger.
Judge Roberts told Hayes:”Speed kills, and this was excessive and dangerous speed.” “There are too many deaths on the roads, and he [Hayes] might think he’s the chosen one and that things won’t go wrong for him, but things do go wrong”.
