A 12-year old boy told Gardai that All-Star and former Clare All-Ireland winning hurler, Niall Gilligan whacked him “full force’ with a stick during an alleged assault in October 2023.
At Ennis Circuit Court on Wednesday, in a video interview with specialist Garda interviewers played to the jury, the boy said that Niall Gilligan “just kept hitting me” outside the Jamaica Inn in Sixmilebridge on October 5th 2023.
Mr Gilligan (48) of Rossroe, Kilmurry, Sixmilebridge denies the charge of assault causing harm to the boy.
In the interview carried out on November 11th 2023, the boy said that he went along to the abandoned Jamaica Inn hostel with a friend to explore at around 5pm on October 5th 2023.
Mr Gilligan owned the Jamaica Inn hostel at the time and in the days running up to October 5th the jury was told that the property had been vandalised and had been broken into.
The boy said that on exiting the building he said that himself and his friend – who was 13 at the time – ran after they saw a man and he slipped.
The boy said that “I tried to get up and he whacked me on the leg. He just had the stick – full force.”
The boy said: “He just kept hitting me and hitting me but I don’t know how long he did it for because I got knocked out.”
The boy said that he tried to defend himself by putting a hand up “and my wrist was big as a sliotar”,
Asked by the Garda specialist interviewer about being knocked out, the boy said: “I didn’t know I was knocked out but I think there was a bump on my head. A doctor told me that I was knocked out – I don’t know how.”
The boy said that Mr Gilligan dragged him out by the hood.
Asked by the Garda specialist interview did Mr Gilligan say anything, the boy said “I think he said ‘never come back’”.
The boy said that Mr Gilligan asked me where he was from, who his Dad was and what his name was. He said: “I don’t know why he was asking me that.”
Asked how he felt after he was hit, the boy said: “I could not feel anything because I was just terrified.”
He said: “I just never thought that this would never happen to me – I didn’t think anyone would do that.”
He said: “He was so tall and I was so small – it just scared me.”
The boy said that he saw Mr Gilligan “put the stick he hit me with into his red van”
The boy said that his father showed him a photo of Niall Gilligan at the VHI clinic later that evening “and I knew that it was him”.
The boy said that Mr Gilligan “is like a Clare hurler or something”.
The boy was cross-examined by counsel for Mr Gilligan, Pat Whyms BL (instructed by solicitor, Daragh Hassett) and he said that Mr Gilligan agrees that the boy fell in the slippy area and that Mr Gilligan fell on top of him.
The boy – now aged 14 – said that Mr Gilligan did not fall on him.
Mr Whyms said that in his cross examination the boy said that October 5th 2023 was his third time to go into the Jamaica Inn around that time, that he had admitted stealing keys to the property and let off fire extinguishers there with a friend.
Earlier in her opening statement to the jury, counsel for the State, Sarah Jane Comerford BL said that the jury will hear medical evidence of the injuries sustained by the boy and see photos of bruising and cuts that the 12 year old will tell them were caused by Niall Gilligan hitting him with a wooden stick.
Ms Comerford (instructed by State Solicitor for Clare, Aisling Casey) said after the alleged assault, Ms Comerford said that Niall Gilligan was subsequently arrested by Gardai and gave an account of what he said happened on October 5th and his interactions with the 12 year old boy at the Jamaica Inn hostel “which he told Gardai were in self defence and you will hear that in due course”.
Ms Comerford said that Niall Gilligan denies assaulting the boy with a wooden stick and he has pleaded not guilty to the charge of assault causing harm.
Mr Gilligan is also pleading ‘not guilty’ to producing a wooden stick capable of inflicting serious injury during the course of a dispute contrary to Section 11 of the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act at the Jamaica Inn at Sixmilebridge on October 5th 2023.
The trial continues before a jury of seven men and five women on Thursday
