A quantity surveyor has been jailed after launching a savage and unprovoked attack on a teenage girl in Donegal.
Seamus Cooley repeatedly punched Shanan Reid McDaid in the face in a random assault on the 18-year-old in October 2017.
Cooley, who has had addresses at The Grange, Letterkenny and St Jude’s Court, Lifford, was sentenced to four years in prison by Judge John Aylmer at Letterkenny Circuit Court.
The 51-year-old Cooley has 13 convictions, including 10 for public order matters, from the District Court and also one conviction for an aggravated assault from Northern Ireland.
The court heard that he walked off into the night after leaving his victim covered in blood at Castle Street, Letterkenny in the early hours of October 15, 2017.
The case was outlined to Ms Fiona Crawford BL, barrister for the State, by investigating Garda Neil Kemmy. Ms Reid McDaid had been out socialising with some friends and was walking up the Market Square to meet with friends. A man, now known to be Cooley was close by and he shouted some derogatory remarks to Ms Reid McDaid.
The victim reported that she noticed the man had stopped walking, but had continued to verbally taunt her. When she got within arm’s length of Cooley, he was facing her head-on and he stuck her to the face with a closed fist. Cooley rained a series of punches to Ms Reid McDaid’s face. The young woman estimated that she was struck eight to 10 times by Cooley.
“He just left,” she later told Gardai. Ms Reid McDaid was able to give a detailed description of her attacker to Gardai. A friend of Ms Reid McDaid told how the woman told her pals “I have been hit”. The man said that Ms Reid McDaid’s face “didn’t look real”.
Ms Reid McDaid was taken to hospital, where injuries were found including a suspected broken nose, two chipped teeth, a cut to the side of the head, a sore jaw as well as swelling and bruising to her face.
A report from Mr Gerry Lane, a consultant in Letterkenny University Hospital, noted that the injuries were “entirely consistent with an assault”.
When Garda Kemmy saw the victim, her face and clothes were covered in blood, while he also noted chips to teeth and a cut to the side of her head.
CCTV was harvested and Cooley was identified by members of An Garda Síochána. A search warrant was obtained and executed at Cooley’s home, where a jacket was found and forensically analysed by Forensic Science Ireland. Blood staining with a profile matching the victim was located.
When he was interviewed by Gardai, Cooley was said to have been “extremely derogatory” towards Ms Reid McDaid and also to other women. He claimed to Gardai that she was a liar and outlined that forensics was “all nonsense”. He said the allegation against him was “bullshit” and claimed that the Gardai were planting evidence.
Cooley denied the attack and pointed the finger at another man when he was shown CCTV. “I am innocent and done nothing wrong,” he told Gardai, while he said he was prejudiced and discriminated against.
In a victim impact statement, which was read out by Ms Crawford, Ms Reid McDaid said that a night out in her home town with friends turned into a “life-altering event that had a lasting impact”. She told how she required dental intervention and was in pain for months afterwards.
Ms Reid McDaid said she suffered from physical injuries and was also at a significant financial loss, but said the most devastating impact was the emotional trauma. She told the court that she has had symptoms of PTSD and panic attacks, triggered by minor incidents.
“My body is stuck in a constant state of fight or flight,” she said, adding that she has avoided social settings and felt afraid in her own community.
The incident occurred just as she was starting university. She said that NUIG were “extremely supportive”, but she “always felt a few steps behind.
What made her ideal even harder was that it took almost eight years for Cooley to take accountability – something that made her feel as if justice was being denied.
“I had to carry the weight of it for so long,” she said. It made me angry, resentful and deeply frustrated.”
Ms Reid McDiad recalled how Cooley engaged with one of her social media platforms after she moved to Australia. This, she said, “deeply unsettled me and reopened old wounds.”
At this point, she feared that she “might not ever be truly free from his presence or reach” and noted the toll the matter took on her family.
Mr James McGowan SC, with Mr Senan Crawford BL, instructed by solicitor Conor Moylan of Madden and Finucane, represented Cooley.Mr McGowan said his client was bullied and troubled at home as a child. He said his childhood was “traumatic” and outlined difficulties with his parents
He said that Cooley reported that the atmosphere was “bad much of the time” and said Cooley, a qualified quantity surveyor, suffered from depression and had suicidal ideations.
Mr McGowan told the court that Cooley’s father died in 2017 and his client was binge drinking thereafter, suffering from a lot of anger and depression.
The incident for which he was before the court happened four months after the death of his father. Mr McGowan added that Cooley has since stopped drinking and his anger has “come down” since going sober. He said that Cooley reported that he “finally copped on”.
The court heard that Cooley had been subjected to some “distressing incidents”. Mr McGowan said there had been attacks on his home and car, while he was targeted by “intimidation and abuse” on social media. Mr McGowan said that Cooley is finding prison “difficult”.
Cooley offered €2,500 to the victim, but she did not wish to accept it, the court was informed. In sentencing Cooley, Judge Aylmer said the maximum penalty for such an offence at the time of its commission was five years in prison.
Judge Aylmer said this was a “random attack in the early hours of the morning on a lone, young female on her way home from a night out”.
Judge Aylmer said that the victim sustained a “very violent physical attack” and said she was “extremely fortunate” not to have suffered more serious physical injuries.
He noted the “appalling psychological impact” suffered by Ms Reid McDaid who he said “will be left suffering that impact for a very significant time to come.”
The appropriate headline sentence, Judge Aylmer said, was one of four and a half years in prison “This is very much on the upper end of the scale,” the judge said.
An albeit late guilty plea had to be given credit, while Judge Aylmer noted that Cooley has a “very complex psychological history”.
The mitigating factors were few, Judge Aylmer said, but he added that the accused had come to a realisation in 2025 and said it appeared as if he is now angered in “better self-regulation”. The judge told Cooley: “It better continue”.
Judge Aylmer took account of the offer of compensation, but said: “I would consider it to be far short of a true concrete demonstration of remorse from a quantity surveyor whose business has continued”.
Judge Aylmer reduced the sentence to one of four years in prison with credit to be given for all time spent in custody.
Last June, Cooley was remanded in custody after being found to have breached conditions of his bail when he appeared at Cavan Circuit Court.
In remanding Cooley in custody, Judge Aylmer said that Cooley “displayed arrogance” and showed a “flagrant disregard” for bail conditions previously set by the court.
Under the terms of his bail, Cooley was due to sign-on three times a week at Buncrana Garda Station, but he had only an 82 per cent adherence.
Cooley told the Gardai that he was happy with the amount of times he was signing on and that he was happy to sign on when it suited him. He told Gardai that he started working throughout the country and it “didn’t suit him some days” to sign on.
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