Man facing massive bill after holding teenagers prisoner in Offaly

TWO young teenage men were held prisoner and threatened with a knife by an older man who became violent during a drinking party in Edenderry, Tullamore Circuit Court was told.

A 17-year-old had his nose broken when he was assaulted by Damian Prokopowicz (24), at an apartment in Clonmullen Hall, Edenderry on January 22 last year.

An 18-year-old youth who was present was also subjected to a terrifying ordeal which went on for over an hour, Judge Keenan Johnson heard.

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Mr Prokopowicz pleaded guilty last year to false imprisonment. Other charges including assault, taking a mobile phone, and producing articles in a dispute, namely a knife and a scissors, were taken into consideration when the accused's sentencing hearing took place on Thursday.

Detective Garda Joe Bradley outlined how the guards received a call at 11.15pm in relation to an assault and found the injured party in O'Connell Square, Edenderry.

A juvenile, he had consumed alcohol earlier and a cut was noticed over his right eye along with swelling to his nose.

The victim had been in Tesco that evening and along with his friend had been invited by Portuguese and Polish nationals to an apartment in Clonmullen Hall.

Both of the teenagers were also foreign nationals and they consumed alcohol in the apartment.

The brother of one of them was present and he left but when the two teens tried to leave they were prevented from doing so and one of two Polish men in the apartment assaulted both of the youths.

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“If I don't turn my life around now there is no future for me.”

In a statement, the younger of the two teenagers told gardai one of the two men in the apartment, described as about six feet tall with a tatoo, stood up and said “Let's fight” and when they replied “No fight” the 17-year-old was dragged, struck and put on the ground in the sitting room and pinned there.

When the attacker stopped hitting him he was laughing. After that Mr Prokopowicz went to the kitchen and returned with a knife, saying to the youths “No garda, no garda”.

He then threw the knife at the wall and took out shots of vodka, saying he wanted a bracelet belonging to the 17-year-old.

Mr Prokopowicz then went to the kitchen and came back with a scissors before turning the light in the room off and then back on.

When the two youths were finally able to leave they met a father of one of them having made contact by text and the 17-year-old was brought to hospital in Tullamore.

In his statement, the 18-year-old told gardai the two Polish men in the apartment were doing shots of vodka while the teenagers were drinking wine and he saw his friend being punched to the head two or three times.

He also said that when the accused got the knife from the kitchen he pointed it at him and said “Give me money now”. The young men told him they had no money and after throwing the knife away Mr Prokopowicz went and got the scissors and demanded money again.

The other man who was present was acting as a translator during the incident, the garda witness said.

The court, where Mr Prokopowicz was assisted by a Polish language interpreter, also heard the accused was identified from descriptions, CCTV footage and postings on social media and he was later traced to an address in Rathangan.

In interviews with the gardai, he said he had been drinking beer, vodka and wine that day and could not remember being violent.

The following morning he saw drops of blood on the floor and noticed his hands were sore but he could not really remember the fighting.

A native of a small place near the city of Krakow in Poland he was 23 at the time of the offence and had come to Ireland not long before to start a new life.

He admitted he was wrong to do what he did and he apologised, saying it was hard for himself to believe he had done it and he knew it was a big mistake.

He told the gardai that he did not want to touch alcohol again and if he had been sober he would not have done what he had done.

Detective Garda Bradley told the court Mr Prokopowicz had previous convictions in Poland for driving under the influence and robbery, committed in December 2018, and Judge Johnson heard he had to pay €1,500 compensation for those offences.

The garda agreed with Colm Smith, SC, defending, that Mr Prokopowicz, who worked as a tiler, had not been in trouble since the Edenderry incident and had shown remorse during the interviews in custody.

“It wasn't truly me, I don't know what devil [got] inside me,” he told gardai.

He also said the drinks he was having that night had a high percentage of alcohol, 40 to 50%, and he had also drunk two glasses of absinthe.

Mr Smith said the accused knew there was no excuse for what he had done and he wished to pay for it but he admitted he had brought no money to court.

Judge Johnson said the lack of any compensation before the court did not impress him at all because Mr Prokopowicz knew the sentencing hearing was coming up.

Mr Smith said the defendant had no documentary evidence of his employment but had said he earned €450 per week and paid €500 rent each month. He was a single man with no dependents.

Judge Johnson said he would have thought a qualified tiler would earn more than that and he indicated significant compensation would be sought by the court.

He imposed a seven-and-a-half-year sentence on the accused but suspended it on condition Mr Prokopowicz enter a 10-year peace bond, remain under the supervision of the probation service for 12 months, abstain from alcohol and other illicit substances and provide urine samples for analysis.

He ordered him to pay €15,000 to the 17-year-old in three annual instalments of €5,000, the first one falling due on November 1 next, and €3,000 to the other youth, in annual instalments of €1,000.

He advised the accused to open a Credit Union account and also said he believed the man would not be at risk of reoffending if he stopped consuming alcohol.