Kildare rugby player jailed for frenzied attack on woman and her boyfriend

A RUGBY player was  sent to prison after shocking footage was played at a recent sitting of Carlow Circuit Court, which showed him knocking out a man and repeatedly punching the man’s girlfriend in a pub in Carlow town.

Barry Grey (23), Corballis, Castledermot pleaded guilty to assaulting the couple, causing them harm, during an incident at The Barracks pub, Tullow Street, Carlow on 25 June 2023.

There were gasps of shock when CCTV footage from The Barracks was shown in court during Mr Grey’s sentencing hearing on Thursday 6 March.

The film showed Mr Grey and a friend standing at a vape vending machine in a hallway in The Barracks and a couple, a man and a woman, approaching the machine to also buy a vape. It appeared that Mr Grey was getting annoyed because he couldn’t get the machine to work, while it also showed his friend trying to grab the phone from the man who had come up to the vending machine with his girlfriend. The man pushes Mr Grey’s friend and hits him and then Mr Grey retaliates by punching the man, knocking him down and continuing to hit him while he’s on the floor. The man’s girlfriend then intervenes and Mr Grey turns to her and punches her repeatedly in the face until she falls to her knees.

Investigating garda Matthew Willoughby told the court that the woman gave a statement about the incident to gardaí in which she explained that she and her boyfriend were in The Barracks that night at a 21st birthday party. She said that she and her boyfriend went to the vending machine to buy a vape and that two men were there and she saw something happen between her boyfriend and a dark-haired man before Mr Grey, whom she didn’t know, turned and hit her boyfriend, knocking him down.

She told gardaí that when she went to help her boyfriend, she was punched in the face, but wasn’t sure how often, and that there was blood all over her face, hair and hands. She said that the bouncers in The Barracks took her upstairs, where they bandaged her head, while her boyfriend was also carried up there.

She said that she was brought to St Luke’s Hospital, Kilkenny, where she was treated for her injuries, which included a laceration over her eye, a burst lip and swollen tongue, while her face and head were badly bruised.

In his victim impact statement, the boyfriend said he couldn’t remember what happened to him but that he remembered getting upset when he came around after being knocked unconscious and seeing his girlfriend covered in blood. He said that he “lost it” when he saw her and got upset and that he would never normally behave like that. He continued that he suffered from dizziness and headaches for weeks afterwards and was out of work for a week.

He felt “vulnerable and violated” and that one of the most hurtful aspects of the situation was that some people blamed him, while others avoided him. The court heard that he was subsequently also asked to leave a pub associated with The Barracks, which was “embarrassing” and “awful”.

The man said that the night in The Barracks was supposed to be a happy occasion, enjoying his younger sister’s 21st birthday, but that all his family were “shocked and upset” by what happened. He said that Mr Grey’s behaviour had affected all of his family and his girlfriend’s family and that he had been unable to protect his girlfriend from Mr Grey.

The woman read out her victim impact statement in court, saying that the assault had “impacted every aspect” of her life. She gets flashbacks to 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 ground 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. Judge O’Kelly heard that the woman had previously been strong and confident and believed that she could achieve whatever she set her mind to, but that was all gone after the assault. 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 from work because of the amount of time she’d previously missed while recovering from the assault.

Defence counsel Tara Geoghegan BL told Judge O’Kelly that her client was 21 years’ old when the incident happened and that he’d written a letter of apology to the couple. She said that Mr Grey was ashamed of what he did and regretted what happened. She said that he came from a respectable family and that his behaviour that night was out of character for him.

She continued that he was a rugby player who went to college on a rugby scholarship and is now doing a master’s degree on a rugby scholarship.

Ms Geoghegan told Judge O’Kelly that Mr Grey had saved €6,500 by way of compensation and asked him to consider his early guilty plea as mitigation.

She said that her client would be finished his master’s degree by October this year and asked the judge to consider adjourning sentencing until then, to give Mr Grey a chance to finish college.

Judge O’Kelly refused the application and said that Mr Grey had, in the victim’s own words, carried out a “random, savage and brutal attack on a young woman”. He said that Mr Grey was a “strong, sporty, big-boned person”, who was trained to use that strength in rugby but who had used it to assault a woman instead.

He remanded Mr Grey immediately in custody, adding that he could “pick up on his career when he emerges from prison”.

Judge O’Kelly adjourned sentencing Mr Grey until the next sitting of Carlow Circuit Court in May while a probation report is being prepared.