Should I write to the department of justice about this situation?

And the Gardai are right. They can't just arrest someone for acting weird or for making veiled sly threats that you are reporting to Gardai. They pretty much have to catch someone in the act of a significant crime to arrest them, or you'd have to have a load of witnesses or have it on CCTV.

Say, even if he did stab you or punch you. He already has many many convictions. What's one more sure? It's not going to make a difference to him. He backchats a judge sure. Even if he stabs you, he might not even go to jail, or maybe only spend 2 or 3 months inside, tops.

All this talk about physical combat, stab range, disarmament etc is all just dangerous machismo bullshít. A bit like Margaret Thatcher and the IRA. You (MT) has to be lucky all the time while dirtbox with the knife (IRA) only has to lucky once to get you.

Having the moral high ground and years of MMA training is not much good if you in a dirty fight where you end up knifed and dead or with life changing disabilities.

My advice - you need to pick you battles here son. Unfortunately, this one is unwinnable. Unfair yes, but unfortunately life is unfair and the law is an ass.

You have to follow the rules because youre lifestyle depends on it. His life is already fúcked, so he has no need to follow the rules. Already having 100 convictions, sure getting another 100 won't make a difference. Whereas one conviction to you would spell disaster.

And again, I'll reiterate a letter to the dept of justice is an absolutely farcical waste of time. Don't bother. It will go precisely nowhere.

So you need to be wise, pick you battles, and forget about trying to get into a battle of wits with this guy or the Gardai because it is simply unwinnable.

Okay, here's my take having read the initial post and some of the responses

First off, writing to the department of justice is absolutely no use at all, they'll just refer you back to the Gardai

Second, the guard's are correct in saying they can't do anything, while the guy is clearly being a pr!ck, he hasn't actually done anything illegal, at least that can be definitively proven and result in a conviction

They can't really arrest someone because they think he might commit a crime except in extreme circumstances. If someone is standing outside a bank wearing a ski mask and carrying a gun, then the guards have reasonable grounds to arrest him

Calling someone names, and shoving into you aren't exactly going to be indicators that the guy was trying to cause you harm. He could after all just not have been looking where he was going, or at least that's what he will claim

I think you're also giving the guy a bit too much credit regarding his intelligence. I suspect you're correct that he's trying to goad you into some confrontation but I don't think he's specifically trying to get you a conviction. I'm pretty sure if any confrontation arose, given your background and his history of assaults and carrying a concealed weapon, it's hard to see any judge taking his side unless you basically kerb stomped him to death

More likely, he's identified you as someone he can target, and he thinks that by baiting someone known for being a bit of a tough guy that it'll make him look tougher by comparison

Given your knowledge of martial arts, I presume you're familiar with more non lethal ways to taking someone down and inflicting pain rather than injury. I know a street fight doesn't exactly have a referee and things can go sideways pretty quickly, but it's quite possible that if he ever attacked you, then your training would kick in and you'd be able to stop him without the aforementioned kerb stomp (tempting as it may be)

I hate to say it but you're probably going to have to be a bit of a monk on this one, and insofar as possible just keep doing what you're doing. Avoid the guy as much as possible, don't rise to his baiting and don't escalate a situation. Report anything threatening to the guards so that if there is a physical confrontation, there's a massive paper trail of misconduct on his part to stand in your favour

Hopefully after seeing that he's not getting to you in any significant way he'll lose interest. Unfortunately he'll probably just move onto his next victim then, these types of guys don't learn or change

There is no point in writing to the justice department. They will just pass your letter to the Garda.

You could write to the Superintendent of the district in which you live. It may get some action but it may also put the guards against you.

The guards can do very little. They have nothing to threaten him with and will only want to bring serious charges against him if at all.

They don't want to spend months trying to prosecute him foe a public order offence.

He might well be a source of information to the guards and they don't want to lose that.

Based on your hobbies, I'm going to guess your general physique is.... enviable

If you ever read Of Mice and Men you may recall the character Curley, a small aggressive guy who likes to pick fights with bigger men to show how tough he is

I kinda suspect you've got a Curley on your hands here. And unfortunately he isn't the only one, you'll probably have to deal with this again in future

As you say, not escalating a situation is the far better approach, there's no sense in getting in trouble over a sewer rat

One things which might help your cause is if he's trying to start something could be to pull your phone out and start videoing him. Or get a mate to do it if you're not alone

If the situation does escalate then you have evidence of you trying to defuse things, and being on camera might defuse the situation by itself

There is no such thing as a house arrest in ireland. But what you do have sometimes would be a condition attached to bail that someone not leave their house except for certain purposes until they are brought back to court for trial. Or a condition on release that someone be curfewed at night or not visit a certain place. But that is only short term, and is pretty unenforceable.

Firstly for that to happen, he woudl need to be charged with a serious offence. The offence would want to be serious enough that he could not get normal bail, and in any case he'd be likely given only a short or no sentence when it goes back to court. And until it escalates into a serious assualt where you have witnesses or the guards catch him red handed, you are not going to be getting a case anywhere near a court. So for now, forget it.

I see. Yes you certainly don't seem clued in to how things work here. In fact you seem to be living in a sort of cloud cuckoo land if you ask me. I don't know where you were raised but it certainly seems to have imbued you with some sort of notions that you can click your fingers and have the Gardai and DoJ at your fingertips.

Several people here have told you that writing letters to the DoJ is a waste of time. They are right. But you seem fixated on the idea. So why don't you go ahead so, write to the Minister of Justice with your grand wide ranging ideas for justice reform. See where it gets you. I'm sure you'll have a personal meeting with the Minister before this day week.

zzzzz

Do you think someone in and out of prison since they are a teenager and with 50, 60, 70 convictions is gong to take a blind bit of notice about a court order?