Man having cigarette outside hotel punched before €300 headphones stolen, court told

A 26-year-old man has been remanded in custody after he was charged with stealing a set of headphones worth €300 from another man in Cork city centre on December 27th.

Simon Quilligan, who is living with the Simon Community in Cork, was charged with robbery of the Beats headphones on Lower Oliver Plunkett Street.

Det Garda Danny McEnery gave evidence of arrest, charge and caution and told Cork District Court that gardaí were objecting to bail for Mr Quilligan. He said that gardaí were objecting because of the seriousness of the charge which can carry a sentence of up to life imprisonment as well as the strength and nature of the evidence in the case.

The State would allege that Mr Quilligan approached the injured party, who had come out of a hotel for to smoke a cigarette, and asked him for a light but then punched him in the head and stole the headphones.

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The State would allege Mr Quiligan fled and the injured party, a foreign national working for an IT company in the city, pursued him and confronted him on Morrison's Island and that he produced a scissors and was seen using it in a jabbing motion.

The State would allege that the injured party suffered a small puncture wound to the head before Mr Quilligan was confronted by an off-duty detective and threw the headphones into the River Lee.

He said the State would allege that the off-duty detective followed Mr Quilligan to the White Street car park in the south inner city where he was found hiding behind a car by gardaí and arrested.

Det Garda McEnery said the State would allege that gardaí recovered a scissors from beneath the car where Mr Quilligan was hiding and this would form part of the evidence in the case against him.

Mr Quilligan took to the stand and strongly rejected the allegation that he had stabbed the injured party and said he had rings on his fingers which may have been what caused the injury to the man.

But the scissors was in actual fact a nail clippers, which had fallen out of his pocket behind the car in the White Street car park, he said as he promised to turn up for court if granted bail.

He explained that he was on disability allowance due to depression following the deaths of two of his children and he had neglected to take his medication on the day in question.

Judge Olann Kelleher said that he accepted the State's objection to bail and he remanded Mr Quilligan in custody to appear again at Cork District Court on January 5th.