EXCLUSIVE | 

Portlaoise GP back in court over road rage as she appeals jail term for chainsaw incident

Doctor who launched foul-mouthed tirade at motorist is appealing her jail sentence for causing criminal damage to her neighbours’ property

Patrick O’Connell

Today at 14:00

A 74-year-old GP has pleaded guilty to engaging in threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour after a bizarre traffic incident during which she screamed obscenities at another driver.

Portlaoise-based doctor Annette Brennan — who was previously sentenced to a year in prison over an equally bizarre incident in which she chopped down her neighbour’s fence with a chainsaw — appeared before Portlaoise District Court on Tuesday.

Brennan initially faced two charges arising from an incident that occurred outside the Gandon Inn in Cappakeel on December 4, 2021.

In a recording of the incident, subsequently shared online, Brennan can be seen waving her finger in the other driver’s face and shouting: “F**k, f**k, f**k,” as he appeals to her: “Please step back from my vehicle.”

Closing the door of a vehicle, Brennan then approaches the driver saying: “Do you think I’m going to f**king step away from you.

“You f**k off! You f**k off!”

The other driver responds: “I’m telling you now … I’m asking you to step away. Step away from me!”

As the other driver finishes the last part of that sentence, Brennan begins a phone call to the local garda station in a more reasonable voice.

“Hello. This is Dr Annette Brennan,” she says.

“I would be grateful if you could send gardai here.”

As Brennan is talking on the phone, a bystander asks if there is a child ‘in there’ [in the man’s car], to which he responds: “Yes, there is a child in there …

“She crashed into my car and there’s a child in the car and she’s talking to me like that.”

Brennan’s latest court appearance comes six months after she was jailed by Judge Andrew Cody, who convicted her of chainsawing down 26 of her neighbour’s fence posts and causing criminal damage to the foundations of their new home with a pickaxe.

Brennan was released from custody after she immediately appealed that sentence.

She later refused to apologise for her actions when approached by the Sunday World.

At the time, the long-serving GP also warned there will be no resolution to the conflict with her neighbours, a young couple she sold the site to, unless they knock down their garage and hand back 15 feet of their land to her.

The court heard the couple had been unable to move into their new home as Brennan is refusing to allow the ESB access through her land to connect them to the grid.

This week, the GP was back before the courts once again.

At Tuesday’s sitting, Judge Shalom Binchy heard Brennan was charged with an assault on Richard Robinson in relation to the road rage incident.

The charge was contrary to Section 2 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, 1997.

Judge Binchy was told Brennan also faced a second charge that at the same place, on the same date, she did use or engage in threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or being reckless as to whether a breach of the peace might have been occasioned.

This charge was contrary to section 6 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act, 1994 as amended by Section 22 of the Intoxicating Liquor Act, 2008.

Appearing on behalf of Brennan, solicitor Philip Meagher said there was a plea in respect of the section 6 public order charge and, on this basis, the State had agreed to withdraw the section 2 assault charge.

Sgt Michael Tarpey for the prosecution confirmed this to be the case.

Mr Meagher informed the court that his client was a lady with ‘certain background medical issues.’

He further stated that she was due to see a medical professional named as Professor Casey in the coming weeks. He advised the court that a report would be forthcoming from Professor Casey in approximately six weeks.

Judge Binchy agreed that she would adjourn the case awaiting the completion of the report in the next six to eight weeks.

She said she was noting the defendant’s plea of guilty.

She then further adjourned the case to the December 12 sitting of Portlaoise District Court ‘in the hope of a quieter environment on that date.”

In March, Annette Brennan spoke to the Sunday World after she was convicted of chain-sawing down the young couple’s fence posts and causing criminal damage.

“Boundary disputes are bitter,” the unapologetic doctor told us after the hearing, when we called to her home at Graigueaverne House, Ballybrittas.

“We’re fighting the fact I went down there and cut down a fence.

“And I did … this is nasty stuff! There was a fella in here doing some work …

“He had a chainsaw and I said: ‘Could you do a little job for me? And he said: ‘Fine.’

“And I told him to cut down that fence.

“I cut down the fence in that I stood beside the man who was doing it and I supervised carefully the cutting of each fence post. It is a fence on my land. I know what the judge said. But we won’t bother about what the judge said.”

Brennan, who purchased the 58 acres of land on which Graigueaverne House sits through her company Ballybrittas Farms Ltd in October 1991, said she was unhappy at the location of the boundary fence.

But Judge Andrew Cody heard the fence had been the subject of an engineer’s inspection and was correctly located.

A friend of the couple, whose property was damaged by Brennan, later told the Sunday World: “They have been through three years of hell.

“They have lost the guts of €200,000 because of this so far.

“It’s been three years of absolute and utter abuse.”

Judge Cody said he had given the defendant an opportunity to reflect on her actions.

“This young couple can’t move into their home because the pole for the ESB is on her land,” he said.

He said the defendant was refusing to accept the findings of the court. He said the couple had paid her tens of thousands of euro for the land.

“She is not prepared to facilitate in any way these people she has terrorised,” he remarked.

Brennan’s next appearance before the court on December 12, in relation to the more recent public order offence, will be for sentencing.