Judge dismisses woman’s assault charge saying she was not ‘innocent as the driven snow’

A woman who said she was assaulted by several members of the same family in an unprovoked attack after she parked her car in a midlands town was told by the judge hearing the case her role in the incident had not been as “innocent as the driven snow”.

Emily Evans (26) with an address in Cluaindearrach, Tullamore, Co Offaly appeared before Judge Andrew Cody at the local District Court accused of assaulting Lindsey Lowbridge in the town on October 17th, 2024.

The court heard there was “ill-will” between Evans and Lowbridge because of a relationship Lowbridge’s daughter was involved in.

Lowbridge said she had just been told Evans had tried to attack her daughter before she arrived in the town centre.

She told Sgt Brendan Kearns, of Tullamore Garda Station, that she had initially pulled up alongside Evans’ car and told her to leave her daughter alone, that the situation had “gone beyond a joke”.

She said Evans then started shouting at her, got out of her car and grabbed her hair in an attempt, it seemed, to pull her out through the window while punching her in the face.

Lowbridge said that a cousin of Evans got into the front passenger side of her car and started pulling her hair in the opposite direction before trying to stab her in the throat with a broken glass that had been in the car’s cup holder.

A male passerby intervened, she said, and she escaped nearby, from where she alerted An Garda Síochána.

She said she was taken to Tullamore hospital with injuries to her neck, eye socket and face as well bald patches where clumps of hair had been pulled out. The injuries, she said, meant she could not be a bridesmaid at her brother’s wedding a couple of days later as her face was “destroyed”.

Evans admitted she took the keys from the ignition of Lowbridge’s car and her mobile phone, which was on the dashboard, and throwing them across the road, “out of anger” but claimed Lowbridge had initially approached her aggressively with a hurley and that Lowbridge, rather than her cousin, had been the aggressor with the broken glass.

She said she had also been injured in the altercation but said the incident should not have happened, telling the court: “I’m embarrassed by it.”

Cody said the State’s case relied entirely on Lowbridge’s evidence which, he said, was contradictory at times.

He said Lowbridge “clearly pulled up beside Emily Evans” and that she was not as “innocent as the driven snow”.

The judge concluded Lowbridge had known there was likely to be trouble when she went to the location and dismissed the assault charge against Evans.