Man punched 14-year-old boy

Barry Rainey, Drumellan Park, Craigavon, admitted the assault on February 1 this year.

He was given a five month jail term and a four month suspended sentence was put into operation to run consecutively, making a total of nine months in custody.

The court heard that at 9.30pm the injured party told police he had been punched on the right side of his head.

A description was given of the attacker and Rainey was located a short time later.

The case had been adjourned from a previous court so that a pre-sentence report could be obtained.

A solicitor for Rainey said he was clearly embarrassed at what happened and regretted it.

District Judge, Mr Mervyn Bates, said Rainey was amassing an unenviable criminal record for someone of his age, with 40 offences already.

The solicitor said the defendant was highly intoxicated and had very little memory of the incident.

Judge Bates pointed out that Rainey had received a suspended sentence in November for a drugs offence and he had breached that just two and a half months later.

He added that the young person who was assaulted was very frightened.

Rainey had called him an unpleasant name and told him that he next time he would break his jaw.

Judge Bates said he regarded this as a very serious assault which was aggravated because it was a young victim.

Rainey was later released on bail to appeal the sentence.