A garda sergeant, who suffered a head-butt injury in the course of his work resulting in serious snoring issues has been awarded €25,000 Work Assault Compensation.
Sergeant Noel McSweeney suffered the workplace injury while on a missing person search in May 2012.
Mr Justice Michael Twomey was told by Barrister Ellen Gleeson that Sergeant McSweeney, had been taking part in a missing person search in May 2012 when the incident happened.
The court was told that the missing woman had been found in a car where she was very intoxicated, drugs were found on the scene, and behaving aggressively.
Sergeant McSweeney told the Court that the woman struggled when they tried to take her into custody. He said: “She jumped back and threw her head backwards, hitting me in the nose and upper teeth”. In addition, he said that he suffered cuts to four of his upper front teeth and his nose had also been injured. He now had an airflow restriction in his nose as he suffered a deviated septum.
The woman was taken into custody.
Sgt McSweeney told the court that, after the head butt attack, his snoring affected his wife’s sleep to the extent that he had to sleep in the spare room on a number of occasions.
He added: “The appearance of my nose wasn’t upsetting to me so I decided not to have surgery correcting it. Perhaps if I was a model it would be different”.
He also said that he had decided against corrective surgery as he had only experienced physical slight discomfort.
When it came to calculating the sum of compensation to be awarded to Sgt McSweeney, Judge Twomey referred to the Book of Quantum and approved work attack compensation award of €7,500 with regard to the minor dental injuries and another €18,000 in Garda workplace nose injury damages.