A WOMAN involved in an attack in which a broken piece of glass was used is “likely to re-offend”, a probation officer told a Limerick court.
Laura Vaughan (24), of Oliver Plunkett Terrace, Ballylanders, pleaded not guilty to assaulting Helen Quish and Ms Quish’s son, Terry O’Riordan, and to causing criminal damage to a fence and an iPhone at an earlier hearing in Kilmallock District Court.
The assault happened on August 10 2021 at Ms Quish’s home at Oliver Plunkett Terrace in Ballylanders.
She told the court that Laura Vaughan and a female companion “were breaking the timber fence”.
“I asked them to cop on and stop – that’s when they attacked me. Laura cut my face with glass,” she said.
Asked about her injuries, Ms Quish said she still had a scar on her face. Ms Quish denied that it was she who had assaulted Ms Vaughan.
Judge Patricia Harney convicted Ms Vaughan of the assault.
When Ms Vaughan came before the court last week, having been interviewed by the probation service, Judge Harney noted that the report stated that she was “at high risk of re-offending”.
Defence counsel Liam Carroll said that the probation report, while not very favourable in one sense, was “somewhat contradictory”, since “it also says she is capable of desisting from this behaviour”.
Judge Harney asked if the woman would agreed to a probation supervision order and, when she agreed, ordered that Ms Vaughan co-operate with the probation services for a year.
