A Crumlin man was found guilty of assaulting a doctor with a needle at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. Stephen Ennis, a father of two pleaded guilty to the offence which took place in March 2020. Ennis admitted that he took a needle from his own arm and attacked the doctor, stabbing him three times in the back.
Admitted to St James's Hospital, Dublin, after being found having a seizure outside a Garda station, Mr Ennis became agitated and initially refused to stay on his trolley in the emergency department. He subsequently calmed down and agreed to a blood test. However, the father-of-two quickly became upset again, removing the needle from his arm and threatening the doctor with it. The doctor ran away but he and Mr Ennis became enaged in a tussle and the doctor was stabbed. The doctor was unaware that he had been stabbed in the back until a colleague told him what had happened.
Mr Ennis (30) has 72 previous convictions and is a heroin addict. Defence Counsel, Keith Spencer BL advised that Mr Ennis used clean needles while using drugs and that there was no chance of communicating disease to the doctor. It was agreed in court that the likely cause of Mr Ennis's seizure was heroin withdrawal. Mr Ennis claimed not to remember stabbing the doctor but agreed that the incident had occured.
Witnesses to the attack said that Mr Ennis had been disorientated and 'babbling' about someone trying to kill him prior to launching his attack on the doctor.
