No more chances for man jailed

No more chances for man jailed

11 June 2014

A NEWCASTLE man has been jailed for eight months after a judge refused to give him another chance.

Twenty six year-old Paul Fitzsimons was imprisoned at Downpatrick Court on Thursday for assaulting a man in a Newcastle car park on November 14 last year.

The court was told that a woman was sitting parked in her car outside a pub waiting to collect a friend when Fitzsimons suddenly got into the passenger seat.

He asked the driver to take him to an off-licence and when she refused he then asked her to give him a lift away from the area.

The woman’s friend arrived and managed to persuade Fitzsimons to leave the car, although he wouldn’t allow the door to be closed and kept shouting; “Do you know who I am and where I come front?”

When the two people in the car finally got the door closed and attempted to drive away, Fitzsimons punched the man in the face and other areas of his head through the open window.

A defence solicitor said Fitzsimons should be given a suspended sentence because “he’s a damaged individual” who had a difficult childhood.

However, District Judge Mr. Greg McCourt said Fitzsimons had already been given two suspended sentences over the past two years.

“He just doesn’t seem to change,” Mr. McCourt said. “You just can’t keep going on and getting suspended sentences.”

Mr. McCourt sentenced Fitzsimons, of Central Promenade, to three months in prison for this offence.

He also activated two previous suspended sentences, resulting in a total of eight months in prison.

“You’ve run your course,” Mr. McCourt told Fitzsimons. “I’m not prepared to give you another chance and no court would.”

Fitzsimons was released on bail pending an appeal.