A young man remanded in custody for the past few days after the re-entry of a case against him for harassing a young woman turned up in court with swelling to the side of his face and a black eye following an assault in prison.
23-year-old Luka Tsokialauri was brought back from prison to Cork District Court on Monday for determination of the case.
The young man’s solicitor, Diarmuid Kelleher, said the assault on the young man in prison was not in any way related to the case before the court.
Mr Kelleher said Mr Tsokialauri was not even the one who told him about the assault and it was a prison officer who told him about it.
The defendant had been put on a probation bond for two years for harassment of a woman. This was on condition he would not go within 500m of the young woman’s house.
However, gardaí were alerted by the young woman’s father, who saw the defendant during an incident last April when he was about 70m from her house.
Mr Kelleher said the young man had no intention of approaching the injured party and it was only a coincidence he was in that area at the time.
Judge William Aylmer said in addition to the probation bond, he would impose a six-month suspended sentence on the defendant.
Mr Kelleher agreed with Judge Aylmer that after being in custody since October 3, the young man had no desire to spend six months there in the future.
Detective Garda Barry Lawton said at an earlier hearing in the case the young woman received a lot of texts from Luka Tsokialauri and he made numerous visits to the gym where she worked and appeared to be just hanging around by her work station.
He asked her out and she declined, saying she had a boyfriend, but when she told him by text she would report him to the gardaí if he did not stop calling her, he texted her: “Ha ha, you’re a f***ing bitch”.
That was on November 11, 2021. On December 2, 2021, she left her home to see the accused sitting on the kerb across the road from her car. “He walked towards her. She got a bad fright and he drove away,” Garda Lawton said.
In January 2022, the defendant was arrested at his home in The Orchards, Herons Wood, Carrigaline, Co Cork.
Garda Lawton said: “During interview, he made full and frank admissions. He was in love with her. He followed her home to find out where she lives. He would only go to the gym if her car was there.”
He used to go from Carrigaline to the gym — which is in another part of Cork — on numerous occasions. He also used to walk past her house even though she lives in a cul de sac and he would have no other reason for being in the area.
The court was previously told the accused was from Georgia and living in Ireland for several years and cultural differences may have been an issue in the case.
Mr Tsokilauri pleaded guilty to harassment of a woman between August 17 and December 2, 2021.
