Galway couple attacked by ‘drunk’ teens traumatised over ‘remorseless’ assault

A Galway couple who were attacked in broad daylight have described the harrowing ordeal in detail as they recount how they were leapt upon by a trio of ‘drunk’ teens.

26-year-old Galway man Tadgh Wagstaff had been walking home from work with his partner Francesca when the pair were suddenly set upon by a trio of teenagers in an attack that saw him punched repeatedly in the head and shoved to the ground.

According to Tadgh, the couple were walking along Rockbarton Road in Salthill at around 5:30pm when they noticed a commotion outside a house. There appeared to be a large crowd of teenagers filing outside the house ‘extremely drunk, smashing bottles and shouting’.

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Tadgh told Galway Beo that he and his partner tried to avoid the crowd and be on their way, but before they knew it a group of boys from the house had jumped in front of his partner Francesca and became aggressive.

He recounted: “I had been about 20 paces behind and suddenly one of the young men tried to grab her, so I started to run and try and pull him back.”

However as he set to do so, Tadgh felt a blow to his head from behind and one of the boys began to punch him to the ground.

Tadgh continued: “It was all a blur. I could hear them shouting homophobic slurs, they said they’d ‘f***ing kill us.”

Tadgh said it became an altercation but eventually, he was able to fight the young men off who then proceeded to run from the scene. He then called gardai immediately and reported the incident, which was back in April this year.

The pair initially went home, but after feeling sick and nauseous later in the night, they headed to hospital the next morning to be treated for the blows.

As there was CCTV in the area, two of the young men were found by gardai and were brought into the station to apologise to Tadgh and his partner and “show remorse” for what they had done.

However, Tadgh says while one of the young men expressed extreme remorse, the other did not appear to have any reflections on his actions whatsoever.

Tadgh said: “One of the boys was remorseful, and he said it was the first time he had been drunk and had sworn off it for life after that. He clearly couldn’t believe what he’d done. But the other lad who came in was clearly just apologising to us because he had to. He didn’t seem sorry at all.”

Reflecting on the incident months on, Tadgh says the attitude has existed in Ireland for a long time, adding: “I’m camp looking, I have an English accent – that’s an easy target.

“There’s a laissez faire attitude towards violence against young men and I doubt that lad is ever going to think back on what he did. It will be wiped from his record and he’ll never have to face it.”

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