A man charged with a serious assault on a young woman in Letterkenny has been remanded in custody.
Seamus Cooley had his bail revoked when he appeared at Cavan District Court.
The 50-year-old Cooley is charged with assaulting Shanan Reid McDaid and causing her harm on October 15, 2017 at Castle Street, Letterkenny.
Judge John Aylmer remanded Cooley in custody, noting that he had “displayed arrogance” and showed a “flagrant disregard” for bail conditions previously set by the court.
An application to revoke Cooley’s bail was brought after a failure to sign-on at a garda station as required. Under the terms of his bail, Cooley was due to sign-on three times a week at Buncrana Garda Station.
Garda Neil Kemmy told Ms Fiona Crawford BL, barrister for the State, that an application to revoke bail was previously made before the court and bail conditions were amended last November. Garda Kemmy said that, at that time, Cooley wasn’t abiding by sign-on conditions and was also contacting the alleged injured party on Facebook.
The court did not revoke bail on that occasion, but conditions were amended and Cooley was ordered to reside at a named address, to sign on three times a week and be available 24-7 for contact by members of An Garda Siochana.
Garda Kemmy said the fresh application to revoke bail was being made due to Cooley not signing on all the time.
Garda Kemmy said that Cooley began signing on again on May 14, 2025 having sworn an affidavit. Garda Kemmy outlined that he contacted Cooley on May 20, 2025 to remind him about the sign on conditions.
Cooley told the garda that he was happy with the amount of times he was signing on and that he was happy to sign on when it suited him. He told gardai that he started working throughout the country and it “didn’t suit him some days” to sign on.
Garda Kemmy told the court that he made it “very clear” that bail conditions were set, there wasn’t an opportunity to “pick and choose” and the conditions had to be strictly adhered to.
Garda Kemmy told Judge Aylmer that he didn’t believe that Cooley would honour the conditions as this was the second time an application was being made before the court.
Mr Patrick O’Sullivan BL, barrister for Cooley, instructed by Daniel Kreith Solicitors, said he worked out that Cooley had an 82 percent adherence to the signing-on conditions and this was now the only issue.
Mr O’Sullivan said his client is living with his mother “who is not in good health” and “effectively, he is the only one who can look after her”. Garda Kemmy said he could not confirm this to the court.
The barrister said that Cooley would undertake to adhere 100 percent to the bail conditions.
It was suggested that Cooley has, on occasion, gone to the Garda station and while not signing the bail book has merely had his presence acknowledged. Garda Kemmy said he had never seen this happen.
Judge Aylmer said that Cooley had been “flagrant enough” when it was suggested to him that he was complying.
Mr O’Sullivan said this was “absolutely not an ideal situation” and told the court that he has stressed to Cooley the importance of signing on”. The barrister asked for a “second chance” and said Cooley would sign-on on three days as required.
“I accept these are breaches, but it is my respectful submission that these are minor breaches,” Mr O’Sullivan said.
However, Judge Aylmer said that he might have been persuaded had this been the first time that the Gardai had to bring the accused to court for a breach of bail conditions.
“This is the second time so it would be a third chance,” Judge Aylmer said. “He has displayed arrogance in relation to the signing-on conditions. He is putting the gardai to an awful lot of trouble and is wasting the Court’s time.
“He has shown a flagrant disregard for bail conditions and signing-on conditions, notwithstanding the second chance given.”
Judge Aylmer revoked bail and remanded Cooley in custody.
In February 2020, Cooley was sent forward to the Circuit Court and a court previously advised that media coverage of the case should not include the accused’s address.
In June 2023, the court heard that a new legal team had come on record for Cooley, who had told a previous sitting that he was unable to find a legal team. On that date, Mr O’Sullivan told Judge Aylmer that he understood that there had been a number of previous solicitors on record for Mr Cooley.
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