Prison sentence for public order offence at Kilkenny hospital

A one-month prison sentence was handed down to a man who was convicted of engaging in threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour at the Emergency Department at St Luke’s Hospital.

Vincent Long, 29 Togher Way, Urlingford contested the charge and the case was heard before Kilkenny District Court.

Hospital porter, Sean O’Dwyer gave evidence that he downloaded the CCTV footage from the incident.

Inspector Alma Molloy  told the court that the CCTV was six minutes long and captured the incident in full.

The CCTV footage was played to the court.

Triage nurse in the Emergency Department, Ms Trina McKenna also gave evidence in the case.

The nurse outlined how at  around 5pm on August 23, 2023 she heard shouting and went out to the public area of the Emergency Department and  observed Mr Long recording and looking for CCTV footage from the previous day from staff.

Ms McKenna moved a number of  patients to a safer area and she asked Mr Long to stop recording and asked a colleague to phone the gardaí.

Ms McKenna told the court that the defendant was engaging in ‘threatening behaviour’ towards the hospital porters and that the ‘outpatients were frightened’.

“I asked him to put away his phone and he continued to record. I asked him to leave, I was nervous, he refused to leave,” she said.

Stephen Hayes also gave evidence and told the court that he works in the security department at St Luke’s Hospital. Mr Hayes said that security staff had an alarm which activated if there was an incident in an area of the hospital. On the date in question

Mr Hayes said that the alarm went off for the Emergency Department and he went to that area.

Mr Hayes said that he saw Mr Long and described his behaviour as ‘hostile’ and ‘aggressive’.

“He was screaming, he was very disagreeable. He caused a lot of upset and was in the main waiting area,” he said.

“The atmosphere was that the other people there were upset and disgusted’.

Garda Michael Cleary also gave evidence that on August 23 he was in the garda patrol van and at approximately 5.30pm he received a call to attend at the Emergency Department at St Luke’s Hospital.

“I entered the (Emergency Department) and went and spoke to Vincent Long. He instructed me that he wanted the footage

from the previous day. I informed him that there was a way and means but that he would not be getting it on that date,” he

said. The garda also told the court that the defendant refused to leave when asked to do so by gardaí and that there were a

number of people present.

The garda said that he asked the defendant to leave following a conversation he had with a nurse where she told him she had

to move patients and elderly people because she feared for their safety.

At 5.45pm the garda arrested for an offence contrary to Section 6 of The Public Order Act. The garda said that the defendant

was cautioned and made no reply to arrest after caution.

The defendant represented himself in court and said in his evidence that the previous day he had attended the Emergency

Department at St Luke’s Hospital seeking medical attention and claimed that there was no doctor available. Mr Long said he

drove himself to hospital in Clonmel where he was seen by medical staff and had an x-ray.

“I went in on August 23, I was not aggressive or abusive. All I wanted was the CCTV to blast it all over social media to show

what the HSE are.”

Judge Geraldine Carthy described the incident as ‘very serious’ adding that individuals had to be removed and that elderly people were frightened.

Judge Carthy convicted the defendant and sentenced him to one month in prison.

Recognisances were fixed in the event of an appeal.