A Tralee man has been jailed for seven months after pleading guilty to what a district court judge called “a litany of the most abhorrent criminal behaviour”.
32-year-old Michael McCarthy of 2 Muing, Tralee, pleaded guilty to a string of crimes between 2019 and 2021, including assaults, public order offences, and drug offences.
Mr McCarthy admitted to verbally abusing and spitting at multiple female drivers, as well as pulling down his pants and exposing himself to gardaí on Christmas Day in 2020.
Judge Marie Keane said his behaviour was utterly disgraceful.
On Christmas Day in 2020, Mr McCarthy pulled down his pants and exposed his genitals to gardaí who were on a patrol in Muing Estate in Tralee, before he then slapped the cheeks of his buttocks at them.
He then resisted arrest, shouting at gardaí to get off him while using expletives, and told them, “If you can’t pour the price of it, you can’t drive it”.
Mr McCarthy also admitted to shouting “prostitute” and spitting at multiple female drivers in incidents in 2019 and 2021, after either driving aggressively behind them or dangerously overtaking them.
In February 2021, Mr McCarthy also threw a bottle at the car of another female driver and verbally abused her on Rock Street in Tralee.
Among his other offences are possession of around €400 worth of cannabis and €500 worth of pills, as well as verbally abusing members of An Garda Síochána.
On several occasions between 2019 and 2021, Mr McCarthy was stopped by gardaí on the roads in Tralee driving different vehicles, even though he had been disqualified from driving for 26 years in 2012, and so failed to produce a licence or insurance on any occasion.
The court heard Mr McCarthy has 90 previous convictions and 13 previous driving disqualifications.
His solicitor Pádraig O’Connell asked Judge Marie Keane to take account his guilty plea to all matters, and he admitted this was delinquency and serious criminal behaviour.
Mr O’Connell said through him, his client profusely apologises to civilians and gardaí.
Judge Keane said this was a litany of the most abhorrent criminal behaviour, that he was a serious menace to female drivers when they were not driving in accordance with how he deemed acceptable.
She said the words he used towards women were abhorrent, that all these women were minding their own business driving, and he sought them out to reprimand them and verbally abuse them.
Judge Keane sentenced Mr McCarthy to a maximum sentence of seven months in prison.
