Man (54) jailed for harassing boy he persistently followed in a county Tipperary town 

A 54-year-old man received a two-year jail term with the final year suspended at Clonmel Circuit Court last week for harassing a 10-year-old-boy by following him and making a suspicious approach to him in a county Tipperary town.  

Judge Patrick Meghan imposed the sentence on Michael Davis with an address at Shortallstown, Dunnamaggin, county Kilkenny, who was found guilty following a trial in late February last year of harassing the boy at a location in county Tipperary on March 25, 2016, contrary to the 1997 Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act.  

The father-of-three had pleaded not guilty to the harassment offence but accepted the trial  jury’s verdict. 

As he sentenced Mr Davis, Judge Meghan concluded that the defendant engaged in “persistent” following of the boy and he considered his approach to the child in a field constituted an  “element of grooming”. 

The court heard the incident had a profound impact on the victim, who changed from being an “outgoing” child to one who suffered nightmares and lost his trust in adults. His parents rejected Mr Davis’ offer of €12,000 compensation. 

The finalisation of the  sentencing of Mr Davis was delayed for a year because of  difficulties in producing a psychiatric report and updated probation service report on Mr Davis due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

At the start of the sentencing hearing, a detective garda, who investigated the case, reshowed CCTV footage evidence from the trial.

 It showed Mr Davis following the boy around a shop and speaking to him at the sweets section and showed him following the boy out of the shop and around the back of the shop.  CCTV also showed the boy going to  a neighbouring housing estate. Mr Davis  returned to his  BMW car and drove around the estate.

The court heard Mr Davis  then followed the boy on foot when the child crossed the main road and went to a local field. 

 Mr Davis approached the boy in the field and spoke to him but the child ran to a woman in another part of the field, who was a friend of his mother. The court heard the entire incident lasted 27 minutes.  

The court also  heard that another court prosecution against Mr Davis is pending and relates to an offence that occurred in October 2016. 

Defence barrister David Bulbulia BL said his client accepted the jury’s verdict last year and expressed remorse over the distress he caused the boy during his garda interviews and before the jury’s verdict in the trial. He had always been “horrified” that he caused the child distress. 

Following the trial, Mr Davis  offered to pay €12,000 compensation as a token of his remorse to the victim but it was rejected by the boy’s family. The victim’s family still didn’t wish to accept this money but it remained available to them or to be donated to an appropriate charity as part of the sentence.

His client had felt an abiding sense of shame when he was brought away in the prison van after the trial last year. 

“He was ashamed of himself and realised that nobody but himself had put him in the back of the prison van; somewhere he never expected to be.” 

Mr Davis was remanded in custody for two weeks following the conclusion of the trial but then granted bail and complied with all the bail conditions set at that time.

  The barrister pointed out that his client hadn’t come to the adverse attention of the gardaí since October 2016 and had never been in trouble in his life before the incident for which he was now being sentenced. 

Mr Bulbulia outlined that a psychologist’s report prepared on his client last year linked a childhood trauma Mr Davis suffered when he accidentally shot and seriously injured his brother when he was about 14-years-old to his behaviour on this occasion.  

The court had requested the psychiatrist’s report to advise further on any connection between the two events. 

This psychiatric report was now before the court and it endorsed the psychologist’s conclusion that there was a link between Mr Davis’ behaviour on March 25, 2016 and the childhood trauma, which his client never properly addressed until he was arrested and sought help. 

Mr Bulbulia said   the psychiatrist’s explanation for Mr Davis’ behaviour on that day was that he was in the throes of a highly distressing mental state. This  may account for some of what he did on that occasion.  

In relation to his client’s risk of re-offending, the barrister argued that Mr Davis  has now taken steps to deal with the “deep underlying scar” caused by what happened when he was 14-years-old and the psychiatrist, in her report, acknowledged the steps he had taken since the beginning of the investigation to get to the bottom of this by undergoing therapy. 

Mr Bulbulia addressed  what he described as the “elephant in the room”. He submitted there was no evidence in this case of Mr Davis having a sexual motivation or agenda. 

He noted the DPP didn’t direct that his client be prosecuted for any offence or attempted offence of a sexual nature nor did the DPP direct a prosecution for attempted abduction or grooming. 

This was an harassment prosecution and he appealed to the court to bear that firmly in mind when sentencing Mr Davis. 

In relation to the gravity of the offence, Mr Bulbulia pointed out there was no suggestion  the boy had been a target of interest for any period of time. It was a once-off incident. 

The DPP directed  the case was suitable to be dealt with in the District Court if the defendant pleaded guilty.  His client opted for a trial, as was his right. The barrister stressed he was in no way suggesting that this wasn’t a deeply distressing incident for the injured party. 

He placed the offence at the upper level of the lower end of the scale of gravity for harassment cases. He cited cases prosecuted before the courts that related to very nasty, depraved and prolonged offending that represented the highest end of the scale in making this assessment.  

Mr Bulbulia also argued  this prosecution has already had “significant collateral consequences” for his client irrespective of the penalty the court imposed. 

Mr Davis  had held a very senior management position in one of the largest companies in the country and had lost this job. He was currently employed but earning a fraction of what he previously earned. 

His marriage had also ended. He now had a very serious Circuit Court conviction that will follow him for the rest of his life. 

The barrister appealed to the court to take into account Mr Davis’  very significant efforts to rehabilitate in imposing sentence.  

Judge Meghan highlighted a paragraph of the psychiatrist’s report which described Mr Davis as having been in “a trance like state” that he came out of when he spoke to the boy in the field. 

  But the evidence of the woman the boy ran to in the field was that when she called him, the defendant disappeared and she next saw him down by the main road.

“The point I am raising is that he ran away, supposedly coming out of a trance-like state. Wouldn’t it be more likely for him to say, ‘what is happening’, ‘I am sorry’,” the judge asked.   

Mr Bulbulia responded that this portion of the witness’ statement was the subject of cross examination during the trial. He didn’t think Mr Davis accepted that he ran away. 

Judge Meghan replied that this looked to him to be  deliberate rather than “trance-like” behaviour.  

In imposing sentence, the judge said he must first consider the aggravating factors of the case and these were the age of the victim, the impact of the incident on the child and the evidence of  how Mr Davis followed him in the shop and from the shop into the nearby housing estate and to a field.  He characterised Mr Davis’ approach to the child in the field as an “element of grooming”. The child ran from the scene to the woman.

 “The whole episode from entering the shop took 27 minutes. There was persistent following during this period by the defendant.” 

Judge Meghan noted the incident’s  profound effect  on the victim. 

He recalled the victim impact statement from his parents detailed how he was an “outgoing”  boy prior to this incident but his world turned upside down after it.  

He suffered from nightmares, he lost trust in adults, his school work went downhill, his participation in sport became non-existent and he stopped going to the shop. 

The mitigating factors were that while Mr Davis denied the allegation, he didn’t obstruct the investigation. He apologised and expressed remorse and offered €12,000 compensation, which was rejected by the victim’s parents. 

Alongside this, there was no violence or earlier surveillance or targeting of the boy and Judge Meghan accepted  the defendant felt ashamed. 

He concluded the appropriate sentence was two years’ imprisonment and he suspended one year of the jail term on condition he kept the peace and attend counselling while in prison and come under the supervision of the probation service. The judge made an order directing that Mr Davis stay away from and not communicate in any way with the victim for 11 years. 

He refused Mr Bulbulia’s application requesting a deferral of the commencement of the prison sentence to allow his client time to put his affairs in order such as notifying his employer. But he gave Mr Davis credit for the two weeks in custody he served following the trial last year.   

Judge Meghan finally praised the gardaí for their very good detective work in investigating this case and two civilian witnesses who were of great assistance during the trial.