Kyle Hayes receives 2 year suspended sentence and €10,000 fine.

Yes, so it sets a precedent. Are you capable or critical thought at a all? Evidently not.

Look up the definition of assault. He assaulted someone and got away with it.

I hope your family don’t have you in their corner if anything was ever to happen to them. Green tinted blinkers.

Being part of the gang that beats up a person is not an excuse. Everyone in the gang should get 10 times harsher sentence than if it were a 1:1 fight. Even if all you do is stand around, while your mates are beating up the victim, you are as responsible.

Yes, indeed, I want to live my miserable life in peace with violent gang thugs locked away, to prevent them from fracturing my eye sockets and other bones.

He beat the **** out of a fella outside a nightclub - no judge can change that fact.

I think a custodial sentence would have been correct here but failing that 200 plus hours of community service perhaps.

10K seems like a buy out so he can go back hurling. Doesn't sit right.

It was a brutal assault and should have yielded more than a slap on the wrist. Community service is hardly a Siberian gulag.

What happens if your first offence was a murder?

Thanks, I'll continue to blame the scumbag in question for what happened. And the scumbags that support him for being the ones responsible for such a travesty of a sentence

If we had enough prison places then he should have gotten a custodial. But we don’t and there are far worse animals on the street anyone annoyed he isn’t locked up has an agenda.

Roll on the five in a row! Hon Limerick.

Irish justice system is a joke, needs to be tougher

A lot of young men get involved in street fights and act like entitled assholes in Nightclubs.

I think his behaviour and actions on the night were appalling, and for all I know he is a complete ass the rest of the time too.

I just don't think he should be treated any worse than somebody else for the same crime.

And given the publicity I'd say he already has come out of it worse than another would, not to mind then giving him a prison sentence on top that nobody else would get.

Tell that to the guy with the busted eye socket.

Still he was convicted of violent disorder and not the more serious charge, is employed and has no other convictions.

I don't think it's unusual to see people convicted of more serious charges who get suspended sentences.

I would have been quite surprised if he had gotten a custodial sentence tbh.

Rightly or wrongly judges look very favourably on strong work records, first offences and being deemed at very low risk of reoffending, which I'm assuming was the case here. I don't think in sentencing terms he was treated any differently.

I'd imagine the judge would also have to respect the jury's finding that he was not guilty of assault. I know there were witnesses but I believe the defence was that his brother was also part of the fracas, that it was a chaotic event, and those witnesses might have been mistaken. I think the judge would have had to respect the jury finding that a reasonable possibility.

In terms of pleading guilty, it's hard to argue that he should have, given he was found not guilty for the more serious charge. He might even be quite sure he didn't land the blow that caused the harm.

Huge fcuker and serious athlete, imagine having him come at you in a drunken rage.

I'd say he's up to his neck in women too and this conviction will only enhance his badboy appeal.

It’s not hard at all to argue he should have plead guilty, could have saved everyone, including himself, the trouble and publicity of a trial, and received a far more lenient sentence. That’s kinda the point of pleading guilty when the prosecution have plenty of evidence to support the charges.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d received a custodial sentence, but it was only for his otherwise good character (there’s no point in other posters arguing if Joe Soap this, then that, because each case is determined on it’s own merits). He was treated differently both in terms of the verdict, and sentencing, precisely because of the circumstances outlined by the Judge. The idea that he is, in the Judges own words “a successful sportsman” undoubtedly played a part in determining sentencing -

The judge said he accepted Mr Hayes had no previous convictions, was of good character, a good worker, had raised money for charities, and is a “successful sportsman”.

However, the judge said he could “not ignore” that Mr Hayes had “significant culpability” in the events on the violent events on the night.

He added that the violent disorder inside and outside the nightclub were “linked”, and that Kyle Hayes and others acted in a “threatening and menacing” manner when they “followed Cillian McCarthy out of the nightclub”.

Maximum sentence for violent disorder is the same as that for assault - 10 years. He was let away very lightly with sentencing for both convictions suspended and an order to pay compensation of €10k to the victim, noting that the victim could still pursue a civil case should they wish to do so -

Judge Sheehan directed Mr Hayes to pay €10,000 in compensation to Cillian McCarthy who Judge Sheehan said was attacked by Mr Hayes and others on the night. The order is without prejudice to any civil proceedings now open to Mr McCarthy, the judge said.

One law for the rich or privileged and one law for...ah you know the story.

It’s not one law for the rich or privileged and one law for everyone else at all. It’s the same law applied the same way, for everyone. In sentencing Judges will take aggravating and mitigating circumstances into consideration in sentencing. In the example you used, they were acquitted. If you’ve a few previous convictions for road traffic offences but you love animals? Suspended sentence for being an idiot:

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/woman-who-shared-image-of-boy-a-online-acted-as-judge-jury-and-executioner-court-hears-1604405.html

In Kyle Hayes case, there were aggravating and mitigating circumstances too, and the Judges sentencing won’t change what I think of Hayes (not much), but he received a fair trial and the Judges sentencing was fair.

It’d be silly to argue that the law should be applied differently because he’s plays hurling (he should have seen the inside of a jail cel), but then to complain that the law was applied differently because he plays hurling (as though he actually got off scot-free, he did not).

He might need to get his brothers on the squad too by the sounds of things

Maximum sentence is 10 years, but who gets anywhere close to maximum sentence for a first offence and when they're employed.

From what I see judges go to great lengths to avoid jail sentences for people who are working. Whether that's right or wrong it's the same for everybody.

Again, he was found not-guilty of assault. Why would he plead guilty for that? So there would have been a trial anyway.