A MAN who previously received a suspended sentence after shooting three men, killing one, after they called to his house issuing threats, received another suspended sentence after he admitted assaulting a man in a pub.
Christopher McCormack (65), of Lenihan Avenue, Prospect, pleaded guilty before Limerick Circuit Criminal Court to assaulting Craig McMahon (33) causing him harm at Gerry Power’s pub in Limerick City on August 25, 2019.
In 2004, Mr McCormack was given a suspended three-year sentence after admitting to shooting and injuring two men, David Noonan and Derek Hayes, outside his former home, as well as shooting and killing a third man, Billy Power, in the same incident.
McCormack told Gardaí at the time that he was protecting his family when the three men called to his home armed with a knife, a stick, and a hammer. McCormack also believed the men were armed with a handgun.
McCormack told Gardaí the three men went to his home looking for his son and said they were going to kill him.
Mr McCormack said he was threatened by the men and fired shots at them from his legally-held shotgun, telling Gardaí: “I had to protect my family, I did what I had to do.”
In respect of the assault at Gerry Power’s pub in 2019, McCormack told Gardaí he punched the victim several times in the face.
In 2022, another man, Paul Mason (57), of Maple Court, Kennedy Park, received a fully suspended two-year sentence after he admitted punching Craic McMahon during the same attack.
Mr McMahon also sustained stab wounds to his chest and neck, but Gardaí said they could not ascertain who was responsible for causing these injuries and no weapon was recovered.
Prosecuting barrister John O’Sullivan told the court that Mr McMahon “stumbled out of Gerry Power’s pub and collapsed on William Street”.
“There was a trail of blood spatters on William Street that led back to Gerry Power’s.”
Mr O’Sullivan said a number of people who were in the pub at the time refused to make statements, bar one man, who identified McCormack and Mason as the assailants — however this man “proved very difficult to locate” afterwards.
He said Mr McMahon gave a brief statement to Gardaí, but “he did not identify his assailants, even though they were known to him”.
Mr O’Sullivan said the State welcomed McCormack’s guilty plea, as it would have proved a difficult case to bring to trial because of “difficulties securing the attendance of several civilian witnesses, including Mr McMahon”.
“For a period it looked like we would have Hamlet without the prince, so it was a most welcome plea,” he told the court.
The court heard McCormack had serious health issues and requires a lung transplant. The father-of-five sat in court wearing a nasal face mask attached to an oxygen tank.
McCormack’s barrister Eimear Carey asked the court not to jail McCormack, and told the court: “He’s a different man to what he was then, he is working all his life, he has complex medical needs.”
Imposing a fully suspended two-year jail sentence, Judge Colin Daly said McCormack’s previous conviction for the shooting in 2000 was a relevant and aggravating factor, but he said, as it was 19 years prior to the assault, McCormack should not experience a significant loss of mitigation.
