Muggers face jail threat after random Galway City attacks

The threat of a three-year sentence hangs over a couple who violently mugged three young women in separate attacks as they walked through the city on their way home from work and college on a winter’s evening.

One of the victims sustained a fractured elbow as well as extensive bruising to her body as one of the muggers dragged her along the ground at Eyre Square in an attempt to steal her handbag.  She also suffered a deep gash to her left knee and had to be treated at UHG for her injuries that evening. The other women suffered minor injuries when they too were attacked from behind and dragged along the ground.

While their physical injuries have healed, all three continue to suffer from the mental scars left by their attackers, all stating in their victim impact statements to a court this week that they no longer feel safe to walk the streets of Galway alone at night.

Rosanna Cawley, who is now 23, and from the Bog, Poolboy, Ballinasloe, and her then-partner, Willian Toohey, now 20, from Mountrath, Co Laois, pleaded guilty moments before their trial was due to begin before a jury at Galway Circuit Criminal Court in February 2020 to robbing a Canadian medical student’s handbag, her iPhone and iPad worth €735 at St Nicholas’s Street on November 5, 2018.

Toohey also pleaded guilty to attempting to rob another woman at Bóthar Breandán Uí Eithirr on the same evening and to assaulting a third woman, causing her harm, outside the entrance to the shopping centre in Eyre Square, also on the same evening in 2018.

Judge Rory McCabe directed probation reports on both accused and remanded them on continuing bail to November 4 last for sentence.  They brought €1,000 compensation to court for the victims on that date but the court was told they had missed several appointments with their probation officer and were not co-operating. It also heard Cawley had given birth in the interim.

Judge McCabe adjourned sentence to March and then to last week’s court to give the pair another chance to comply with the probation service.

Garda Michael Gallagher told the sentence hearing this week that at 5.30pm on November 5, 2018, Gardaí were alerted to a woman whose bag was pulled from her shoulder in Eyre Square.  She was attacked from behind and knocked to the ground, sustaining injuries to her elbow and body in the fall. Gardaí received a report a few minutes later from a Canadian medical student who had been injured when she was dragged along the ground after her bag was pulled from her shoulder near St Nicholas’s church.

The bag contained her laptop, iPhone, lecture notes and bank cards.

Shortly afterwards, Gardaí received yet another report from a third woman who said she had been the victim of an attempted robbery near Prospect Hill but had managed to hang onto her shoulder bag, even though she had been injured in the attack. Cawley was found in possession of one of the victim’s handbags when the couple were arrested a short time later.

Garda Gallagher read the victim’s separate impact statements into evidence.

The woman who was mugged in Eyre Square said the attack affected every day of her life since. She said she was dragged along the ground towards a steel pole and tried to move her head out of the way.  The muggers ran when her head hit the pole.

She sustained a deep cut to her knee and damage to her neck and back.  She had to seek counselling afterwards and can no longer walk alone in Galway City.  She no longer carries a purse or handbag and will not go out in the city on her own after dark.

The medical student’s mother had to travel from Canada to care for her daughter after she was attacked.  Her head hit the ground hard, she said, and her medical notes were taken as well as her phone and iPad.

The third victim said she had just finished her first day at work in a new job and was almost home at 6.30pm when she was attacked. She let out a roar and managed to stay upright while hanging on to her handbag which was ripped apart during the attack.

To be attacked outside her home was unnerving, she said, in her statement and she no longer trusts people. She too had to receive counselling after suffering panic attacks in public.

“I’m afraid to be alone in public anymore and I’ve no independence left,” her statement concluded.

The couple offered no explanation for their actions that evening, although Cawley claimed she drank two naggins of neat vodka and two cans of beer earlier.

The court heard the couple had brought another €1,000 to court for the victims.

Judge McCabe said the pair were looking at a three-year sentence as the victims had been left ‘out of the blue’ with physical and mental scars.

However, he said he would adjourn finalisation of sentence to November 3 to see how the pair continued to rehabilitate while under probation supervision.