Courts

Former election candidate jailed for assaults after disrupting Tralee drag story event

Ross Lahive was ‘prime mover’ in violent incident where children had to be shielded and showed no remorse, judge says

Ross Lahive denied assaulting four people during the incident, including a woman and a library security guard.
Ross Lahive denied assaulting four people during the incident, including a woman and a library security guard.
Anne Lucey
Fri Dec 20 2024 - 17:40

Former European election candidate Ross Lahive was given a three-month jail sentence at Tralee District Court on Friday for his part in disrupting a drag story event for children at Tralee library in July 2023.

Refusing to consider a suspended sentence, Judge David Waters said Lahive was “the prime mover” and had shown zero remorse for his part in the violent attack, during which children had to be shielded and words like “prostitutes” and “grooming” were used. The only threat to the children were the three who arrived from Cork with the intention of disrupting the event, the judge said.

Fines have been handed down in the case of two co-accused.

The three had denied all the charges. Hearings of the case took place in Tralee and Listowel, during which video footage was shown of noisy disruption of the event organised by Kingdom Pride.

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Last Monday all three were convicted by Judge David Waters.

The 45-year-old Lahive, who was a candidate for The Irish People in the Ireland South constituency of the European elections this year, had denied assaulting four people, including a library security guard, a woman, a male photographer for the event and another man. He was convicted on all four assault charges contrary to Section 2 of Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, 1997

“There is clear evidence in relation to all four assaults,” the judge had said.

They included barging aside of a young man on door duty, throwing of a man on the ground, twisting the arm of the woman and assaulting a photographer, the judge detailed.

Eugene Manley, barrister for Lahive, in a plea for mitigation at the sentencing on Friday said his client had co-operated fully with gardaí, was not under the influence of drugs or drink and was entitled to his views.

Lahive, of Church Street, Shandon Street, Cork, who is unemployed, had previously worked in construction and had studied computer programming. He was currently engaged to do a safe pass “manual handling course” and “wished to get his life back on track”, the barrister said.

He had not realised the definition of assault and at other similar events in libraries in Cork City there had been no Garda involvement, Mr Manlely said.

Lahive accepted there were “high emotions” on the day and he had a martial arts background.

The court was told he had a previous conviction for public order offence, dating to a month before the July 13th Tralee library incident. He was given the probation act on December 4th for that incident.

Judge Waters said Lahive was “the prime mover”. He had carried out video recordings which were of great help to the court, and had uploaded them on social media. They included videoing six-year-old children.

“That can’t be tolerated,” the judge said.

People were entitled to protest and had there been a peaceful protest, “we would not be here today”, Judge Waters said.

There was no expression of remorse and only a slight glimmer of insight he had carried out assaults, the judge said.

After a brief consultation with Lahive, Mr Manley told the judge: “He stands by his moral views, he instructs me.”

Judge Waters said Mr Manley’s client was not in court because of his moral views.

“He’s not in court because of his moral views – he’s here because he assaulted people and caused upset to six and seven-year-old children,” the judge said.

He sentenced Lahive to three months in the case of one assault and two months each in the case of the three other people all to run concurrently. The public order conviction is being taken into consideration.