Drunk driver uses hatchet to break into Cork home and steal keys of another car after crash
Accused Until The Arrived Held Caught, Was And Chased, The Gardaí
A man who crashed a car on a drunken drive from Ballyhea to Clonakilty decided to use a hatchet to break into a house in Charleville to steal the keys of another car.
The crime committed by James Williamson, of Moses Road, Clonakilty, Co Cork, was described by his barrister Donal O’Sullivan as “an extremely stupid offence".
Mr O’Sullivan added: “He was essentially trying to get a car to drive to Clonakilty. He was trying to drive home, quite drunk.”
Garda Christopher Gleeson said the burglary was committed on November 3, 2022, at a house in Charleville.
The man and woman who owned that house woke at 6am to the sound of a loud bank from their kitchen.
The man went downstairs to see the kitchen window smashed and he saw a man approaching the driver’s door of his car. The householder ran after the man who fled the scene.
“The man swung a hatchet at him. He defended himself with a small child’s bat that he had taken with him from the house. Mr Williamson fell and the householder apprehended him and disarmed him of the hatchet. The accused discarded the keys which were retrieved by the owner."
Williamson had been visiting Ballyhea earlier where he took a car to drive home. He was drunk and crashed a short while into the journey.
He went to the house at Charleville to carry out the break-in to get the keys of the car with a view to continuing his drunken drive to Clonakilty.
Outside the Charleville house, he saw a hatchet left with some chopping wood beside the house. He wrapped the head of the hatchet in a jumper and proceeded to smash the kitchen window. But after that, he was chased, caught, and held until the gardaí arrived.
At Cork Circuit Criminal Court, Judge James McCourt sentenced him for the break-in to a sentence of two and a half years with the last year suspended.