Kildare rugby player jailed for brutal attack on couple
Shocking video footage of the assault was played in court
A rugby player from Co Kildare was last week given a three-year prison sentence in Carlow Circuit Court after he pleaded guilty to assaulting a couple in a bar, knocking the man out and beating the woman so badly that she didn’t recognise her own face in the mirror.
Barry Grey (23), Corballis, Castledermot had pleaded guilty in a court sitting earlier this year to two counts of assault causing harm at The Barracks pub, Tullow Street, Carlow on 25 June 2023.
During the sentence hearing in March, there were gasps of shock as video footage of Mr Grey, who played rugby for Carlow and at national level, showed him punching the man and then the woman. The attack happened at a vaping machine in The Barracks when the couple were at a 21st birthday party.
When they approached the machine, Mr Grey and his friend were already there, with Mr Grey appearing to get annoyed because he couldn’t get it to work. Mr Grey’s friend pushes the man, who pushes and hits him back, before Mr Grey turns and punches the man in retaliation. Mr Grey’s punch knocks the man down and he continues to hit him while he’s on the floor. The man’s girlfriend then reacts and tries to help him, but Mr Grey turns his attention to her, repeatedly punching her directly in the face until she collapses.
Harrowing victim impact statements were given in court, with the man saying he didn’t remember the assault as he’d been knocked out, but that when he came to, he saw his girlfriend’s face, hands and hair covered in blood. He also said that the effects of the assault were wide, because video footage of it was spread online and that some people blamed him, while others have avoided the couple since it happened.
The woman read out her victim impact statement in court, saying that the assault had “impacted every aspect” of her life. She said that she got flashbacks of what happened and used to scream in bed at night at the thought of it. She said that she thought her boyfriend was dead that night when she saw him lying on the floor and that she herself was “hit time and again”. She couldn’t process what had happened to her, she said, and that the defendant had not apologised to them.
She continued that her face was “every colour under the sun” after the assault and that she was out of work for five months. She said it was a “random, savage and brutal attack” on her by a stranger, which has deeply affected her, her boyfriend and their families.
The court heard that the woman was pregnant last year, but was anxious and stressed throughout her pregnancy, knowing that the court case was pending and that she was not able to take any extra time off work because of the amount of time she’d previously missed while recovering from the assault.
On hearing the evidence and victim impact statements, Judge Eugene O’Kelly convicted Mr Grey and sent him directly to prison, adjourning sentencing for preparation of a probation report.
Last week, Tara Geoghegan BL told the court that €6,500 had been given to the couple by Mr Grey by way of compensation. She said that Mr Grey had been put on medication to improve his mood in the weeks leading up to the assault because he had been injured and hadn’t been able to play rugby to the level he’d been accustomed to. She continued that he drank a significant amount of alcohol on the night of the incident, but he knew that it didn’t excuse his behaviour.
She continued that Mr Grey was doing well in prison, was attending a counselling service and was working in the prison kitchen. She also pointed out that the Probation Service found he had a low risk of reoffending, that he has apologised to the couple and he had gained insight into his actions since then.
Judge O’Kelly said that the couple hadn’t posed any threat to Mr Grey and that his assaults on them were “disproportionate and unjustified”. He said that they were “two very violent attacks” and though “they were short, they had very significant adverse consequences” on the couple and their families. He recalled that the woman’s face was so badly beaten that she did not recognise herself in the mirror, while her phone wouldn’t open by facial recognition.
He continued that Mr Grey “knew he was a strong person, a rugby player who played at national level” and that he had drank a lot of alcohol that night, even though he was on medication. Judge O’Kelly found the assaults to be at the upper end of the scale.
He said that the headline sentence was four years, but if the assault had happened a few months later, it would have been ten years, because the law had changed.
In mitigation, he noted that Mr Grey had pleaded guilty at an early date, that he had shown remorse, had no previous convictions and that he had paid a sum of money to the couple. He reduced the headline sentence to three years and suspended the final year, while also backdating the sentence to when Mr Grey went into custody in March.
