This article is from page 62 of the 2007-03-06 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 62 JPG
A YOUNG woman has told a court that she has become a “very different person” as a result of being stabbed, while she worked at an Ennis hotel.
Mia Buena (30), a Filipino national, was waitressing at the Auburn Lodge Hotel on January 2, when she was approached and stabbed in the back with a knife.
The accused, Tommy Dormer (33), of 11 Ashfield Park, Gort Road, En- nis, pleaded guilty at Ennis Circuit Court to assaulting Ms Buena, caus- Thokcap ates am ercvw eee
The victim told the court she has suffered gravely as a result of the stabbing, both physically and men- NOAA
“I thought it was my fault. I was blaming myself because I didn’t see it coming,” she said.
“I still haven’t been able to go back to the place where it happened,’ she Said.
She said her family in the Philip- pines depend on her and she is un- able to support them at the moment.
She said that under the conditions of her work permit, she should be working, but is unable to and now fears she will be deported.
She said she understands what the accused 1s going through.
Outlining the facts of the case to
the court, Detective Sergeant Joe O’Brien said Ms Buena has worked at the Auburn for five years and the accused regularly visits the hotel.
On the evening in question, he went into the bar where Ms Buena was serving customers.
“For no apparent reason whatso- ever, Tommy Dormer stabbed her in the back with a knife,’ he said. She sustained a stab wound to the shoul- Coe
He then went to a neighbouring house and requested that the emer- gency services be called.
The garda told the court the ac- cused said, “I’m on a mission of mer- cy.” While he waited for gardai to arrive, he said Hail Marys and Our Fathers. He said that Dormer said that “voices were telling him to do these things”.
He said the accused suffers from psychiatric problems and over the years there were several incidents of self-mutilation.
Judge Carroll Moran asked where the knife was recovered and the garda replied, “It was left in her back, my Lord”’.
Defence barrister Lorcan Connolly said his client suffers from chronic schizophrenia and that he put the blame for the incident firmly on his own psychiatric problems.
He said his client has never been in
trouble before and “all of a sudden he leaves his home and suddenly com- mits an act against a person who had been very good to him in the past”. He asked that the case be put back,
with the accused remaining in cus- tody, until a regime could be put in place, possibly in Cluain Mhuire, which the court would be satisfied with, on an interim basis.
Judge Carroll Moran adjourned the case until next month, for a Proba- tion Report to be completed.