Limerick man assaulted with his own crutch - victim of a vicious attack calls for tougher sentencing

PRIOR to May 20, 2020, Seamus Troy was outgoing, involved in refereeing and big into the hurling.

Now, the 47-year-old from the Clare Glens “barely leaves the house".

At about 9.40pm on May 20, Seamus was viciously beaten with his own crutch after leaving Cork University Hospital and mugged.

“I had had an operation on my arm. I was on crutches for my balance. I was let out of hospital and I went for a burger, then I got a taxi to the bus station. I was getting a bus to Limerick. The security fella told me to go around the back for the bus. 

“I was walking around and this man grabbed my bag. I went to call 999, then he hit me 40 times with my own crutch, he came back behind me and pushed me. I was defenceless. I got 27 stitches in my head, a broken eye socket, a broken nose and a broken bone in my neck. I was in hospital for six weeks,” said Seamus.

The father-of-four continued: “He took my shoes, he took my jacket, he took my wallet, he took my bag, he broke the crutch completely off me.”

Seamus said his assailant “put coins into my mouth when I was on the ground. He put my head back and put three coins in my mouth and they found them on the MRI.”

“One gentleman came to my rescue and he ran. Only for him I would be dead,” said Seamus.

Later, when he was being interviewed by gardai they told him they thought “it was a murder scene because there was blood everywhere”.

When his son James and daughter Nicola were told what happened they rushed to Cork University Hospital.

Seamus’ injuries were so bad that they didn’t recognise their own father.

“They said, 'That's not my father',” said Seamus, who won All-Ireland minor and under-21 hurling medals with Tipperary as he went to school in Newport. However, he said he is a Limerick man “to the backbone”.

Last month, Adam Sheehan, of 113 Seamus Murphy Place, Mallow, was sentenced to five years imprisonment. The judge said it was “a merciless attack without compassion, necessity or purpose”.

Seamus is deeply unhappy with the “leniency of the sentence”.

“He'll do three years altogether at most. He got seven years, two suspended, and he's in custody since last May. He had 20 previous convictions for arson, burglary and others.

“A garda told me the sentence was a joke. He should have got the maximum sentence – 10 years. Where’s the deterrent in a couple of years?” asks Seamus, who is liasing with his legal team and gardai to see if he can appeal the sentence imposed on Sheehan.

“I have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Croom hospital were on to me. I have to get an operation on my neck, the bone C2 and C3 in my vertebrae, they're going to put pins into it,” said Seamus, who is facing into a life sentence of his own as a result of his injuries – both physically and mentally.

“Before this I was outgoing, I was involved in refereeing, I was big into the hurling. Now I barely leave the house,” he concludes.