Liam Vickers receives suspended sentence for assault causing harm

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Liam Vickers pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assault causing harm in a city-centre apartment in the early hours of 30 September 2017. The proceedings were reported on 22 January 2021.

On 22 January 2021, Judge Elma Sheahan sentenced Vickers to two years in prison, suspended in full for three years. Conditions included following all Probation Service directions and paying the victim €2,000 in compensation within 12 months. At an earlier adjournment, the judge had directed monthly drug testing and ordered him to follow the service’s directions.

The report said Vickers took out a large knife and tried to stab the transgender woman in the face. She blocked the attack and was wounded on her arm and cheek. He demanded free sex, threatened her roommate and told the woman to delete his number and texts. She deleted the texts but saved his number.

Vickers told gardaí he had consumed vodka, cocaine and sleeping pills earlier that day. He said he found the knife in a park and took it because he was paranoid about being robbed.

The court heard that Vickers’s father had pleaded guilty to murdering his mother in 2009. Judge Sheahan called the assault serious and said she could not put aside Vickers’s horrific early-life experience. She noted his probation co-operation, restorative justice work, employment and therapy for alcohol intake.