‘Like a homing pigeon’ – Two Kerry men defy court orders to visit parents’ homes

By Anna Zacharias, The Kerryman

Two Kerry men pleaded guilty to visiting their parents’ homes in defiance of barring orders at Tralee District Court last Wednesday.

The men appeared in unrelated cases and received partially suspended sentences.

The court heard that on December 1, one brother entered a premises owned by his parents, who are the applicants in a barring order.

“It’s a very, very tragic situation,” said his solicitor, Padraig O’Connell. “He had nowhere to go and, like a homing pigeon, he went home.”

The solicitor noted that his client did not threaten or show aggressive behaviour to his parents during the incident.

The brother had 13 previous convictions, including one for arson from 2022, the court heard.

“I don’t want to see this man in prison,” said Judge David Waters. “But if he’s going to continue to put his parents in fear, my hands are tied.”

The judge expressed concern about the event “in the context of the bigger picture”, noting there was significant “propensity for something to go very wrong”. He referred to the arson conviction without elaborating.

He sentenced the brother to five months, backdated to December 1, suspending the last two months for two years. He applied the Probation Act.

In a separate case, the second brother was charged with two breaches of a barring order, intoxication to an extent it would endanger himself or others, and theft.

He had 43 previous convictions, including 10 in relation to theft and had been in custody since November 22.

His solicitor, Brendan Ahern, noted he was at his parents’ house banging on the windows.

“He does tend to drift towards the family home,” said the solicitor.

The defendant has stable accommodation in Castleisland and would be amenable to working with the probation services, said the solicitor. “Unfortunately, trouble seems to follow him.”

Judge Waters convicted him to four months for each barring order breach, suspended for a year on the basis of time already served, taking the public order and theft charges into consideration.

He warned the second brother to co-operate closely with the probation services and adhere to court orders.

If not, he said, a future conviction and unsuspended sentence could mean a year in prison.