Boxer Bernard McGovern boasts he’ll only do ‘few months in prison’ before being jailed for assaulting Kevin Lunney

McGovern stood in front of a camera on Thursday night to thank everyone for their support ahead of Friday’s sentencing

• 12:34, 22 MAR 2021
• Updated12:36, 22 MAR 2021

Boxer Bernard McGovern boasted he would only do a few months in prison for an assault on two businessmen – hours before he was locked up for more than three years.

“A couple of months in jail, sure it will be grand,” McGovern says in this video, recorded late on Thursday night ahead of his sentencing in Cavan Circuit Criminal Court on Friday for the brutal attack on Kevin Lunney and Dara O’Reilly.

And, in the video obtained by The Star, McGovern also claims he can hold his head high – and says he didn’t kill or sexually assault anyone.

“I didn’t steal anything; I didn’t murder anyone; I didn’t rape anyone,” he says.

Although McGovern (24) thought the worst outcome for him over the February 2019 attack would be a few months in Roscommon’s Castlerea Prison, Judge John Aylmer told him on Friday the offences were at the upper end of the scale – and jailed him for three years and three months.

That sentence was for the offence of assault causing harm to Mr Lunney, who is chief executive of Mannok, then called Quinn Industrial Holdings.