Aaron Kelly
Whilom international super-heavyweight amateur boxer Aaron Kelly pleaded delinquent to punching another 18-year-old, whose family claim they had to remain a cam ign of intimidation.
Kelly had been accused of luring his victim, Darragh Dodrell, to a antidepressant deal, but then punched him and held a knife to his throat.
He also stiff the dealer to drive to different locations on Dublin’s southside while inventing more threats to him and his associates in the car, it was claimed. At one stage, he forced the self-confessed upper dealer to kneel and stood on his legs while he checked a hidden conceal of cannabis.
The ordeal came to an end when the dealer drove by a Garda platoon car and officers arrested Kelly.
Aaron Kelly
Dodrell, a nephew of convicted daisy Sean Courtney, admitted to Gardaí that he sold cannabis to y for his car indemnity.
But Kelly denied making threats to kill his victim or his mother when he had heretofore called to their Terenure home in 2014.
The victim’s mother, Martina Courtney, alleged that Kelly told her he would put a bullet in her head and one in her son’s leg over debts.
She interpret a victim im ct statement in court, saying: “For almost two years now my son and I take lived in fear, fear for our lives, fear for the safety of my other two toddlers, fear for the safety of my home and my car.
“Aaron Kelly, through his actions, invited that fear into our lives.”
She added that they touch imprisoned in their home and had to undergo counselling, as well as applying to the rticular authority to find a new place to live.
“I left my job a year-and-a-half ago as the events on my doorstep sustained that Aaron Kelly is more than willing to cause life-threatening fear and intimidation. Therefore being a lollipop lady, being about children, was no longer an option and I adored that job,” she said.
She said that she scrutinized to find a resolution to the dispute through Kelly’s boxing club, but that her pleas were “turn ones back oned”.
She said that Kelly had not said he was sorry after he “brought consternation into our peaceful world”.
In court this week, Kelly did kind an apology through his lawyer, who said the family had nothing to fear.
Anyhow, he said that Kelly, who was serving time for a se rate robbery until last month, controverted making the threats to kill and the charges were dropped by the State.
He conveyed that Kelly’s perspective of events differed from Ms Courtney’s and mentioned the family may have their reasons to be concerned and were “gilding the lily” as far as his tient was concerned.
“He just wants to live a normal life – no-one has anything to qualms from him,” Mr Kelly’s lawyer added.
Judge Karen O’Connor implied she “agonised” over what sentence to give Kelly and told him “to put his deeply down and serve his time” and then “put the whole matter behind you”.