A 19-year-old who armed himself with a hurley and took part in a group attack on a teenage girl in Dublin two years ago, which left her blind in one eye, has been jailed for three years.
Josh Cummins of Raheen Drive in Ballyfermot admitted causing serious harm to Alanna Quinn Idris who was attacked and hit in the face with the saddle of a scooter on 30 December, 2021.
Ms Quinn Idris was knocked unconscious and left with a shattered tooth, broken cheekbone, and a ruptured eyeball.
Despite numerous reconstructive surgeries, she has lost vision permanently in her right eye as a result of the attack.
Cummins also pleaded guilty to three other charges; violent disorder, producing an implement capable of inflicting serious injury and assault causing harm to Ms Quinn Idris' friend, Louis O’Sullivan.
The court was told it was an organised retaliatory attack.
The victims had gotten off a bus in Ballyfermot with a friend at around 9.30pm on 30 December 2021 and were waiting outside her house when the attack took place.
There had been a verbal altercation with another teen referred to in court as Suspect A after they got off the bus.
He left but returned with three others, including Josh Cummins and Daragh Lyons, who earlier this year was jailed for four-and-a-half years for his role in the attack.
Josh Cummins arrived on the scene with Suspect B on an electric scooter, followed by Darragh Lyons on a bike.
Suspect A is still due to come before the courts. Suspect B has not been identified.
Cummins and Lyons began attacking Louis O’Sullivan and when Alanna tried to intervene, she was hit in the face, fell to the ground and lost consciousness.
Some of the assailants jumped over her body to continue the attack and O’Sullivan was hit eight times with the hurl and seven times with the saddle.
Cummins had brought the hurl from his home and retrieved it from behind a tree when the attack began.
It has been accepted that he did not hit Ms Quinn Idris, but he did have a weapon.
Suspect B used the saddle of an e-scooter to hit the teenager in the face.
The attack stopped when a passing motorist intervened, and both victims were taken to St James’ Hospital.
Alanna Quinn Idris suffered a broken eye socket and was transferred to the Eye and Ear hospital where it was discovered she was blind in her right eye.
She underwent specialist surgery including reconstructive surgery to her eye socket which required bone to be grafted from her hip.
The teenager said in her victim impact statement that the attack has destroyed her confidence, she struggles in public, she constantly relives the moment and wonders if she will ever feel safe again.
She said that the life she was supposed to live has been taken away from her, she was the victim of a vicious unnecessary assault and has gone through so much unnecessary pain and suffering.
"It set my life on a different course," she said, "I will have to live the rest of my life disabled. The woman I was supposed to be died that night."
Judge Pauline Codd commended Alanna Quinn Idris for her "immense" courage and described the level of violence used as "shocking and egregious" on two innocent and unarmed people.
It was she said an unprovoked and "cowardly" attack and Cummins had inflamed the violence by bringing a hurley to the scene which he used "viciously".
He "upped the ante" she said, and was the first to introduce a weapon.
She also said it was quite clear from the CCTV footage that the focus of Cummins' violence was Louis O'Sullivan, who suffered significant injuries, not Alanna Quinn Idris who suffered life-shattering injuries.
The prosecuting Garda accepted that when she tried to pull him off Louis O'Sullivan, he did not use force against her.
"In the course of this continuing collective violence targeted at Mr O’ Sullivan," the judge said, "it was Suspect B who struck Ms Quinn Idris into the right eye area with such force that she was knocked out and rendered unconscious. While she was not the initial target of the violence, no mercy was shown to her when she tried to intervene."
Josh Cummins continued fighting as Ms Quinn Iris lay on the ground and while he did not directly use violence against her, the judge pointed out that this does not absolve him from the consequences because he was "highly reckless" and "involved in a joint attack on unarmed persons without any justification whatsoever".
He is now 19 but was 17 years old when the attack took place and was a minor at the time.
He is facing sentencing as an adult, but was, the judge said, part of a group that destroyed two lives that night. He has, she said, accepted his responsibility for the serious harm done to Ms Quinn Idris by pleading guilty to assault causing serious harm.
The teenager also has mental health issues and comes from an unstable family. He left school at 13, worked for a time in a tyre factory and has no previous convictions.
Judge Codd also said that Josh Cummins’ "culpability had to be assessed particularly bearing in mind that at most he acted recklessly in terms of Ms Quinn Idris’ physical safety and did not intentionally target her".
She sentenced him to five years in prison with the final two years suspended.
Alanna Quinn Idris said afterwards that she was disappointed with the three-year sentence.
The teenager said that while she was glad Cummins got a custodial sentence it seemed to her the justice system "is more in favour of the accuser than the victim".
She said she will remember the attack every day for the rest of her life because the injuries are on her face and not something she can hide.
She also appealed to people with information about Suspect B to come forward to the gardaí because the case is still open.
