Young woman who assaulted her partner and best friend after discovering their secret affair is forced to donate €500 to charity

A young woman who caught her best friend and partner having a secret affair has been asked to donate €500 to charity after attacking the couple.

Athy McCarron appeared in Letterkenny District Court in Co Donegal charged with two counts of assault, what the court described as a “crime of passion”.

The 27-year-old nursing student called Therese McGinley at home after receiving strange but exactly the same Snapchat messages from her partner and best friend in the early hours of July 25, 2021.

She became suspicious and went to Ms McGinley’s home where she saw her partner’s car around the corner at around 12.45am.

Ms McCarron confronted Ms McGinley, her best friend of seven years and godmother to her youngest son, and an argument ensued.

McGinley was pinned against a wall, attacked and required stitches with a series of paper sutures after being cut above her eye.

McCarron then went in search of her partner, Michael Tinney, and in her statement said she found him in his boxer shorts in the bathroom of the house.

She hit him several times in the face and chest before leaving the house.

Mr Tinney claimed to the Gardaí that he was in the sitting room of Ms McGinley’s Cathedral Hill home while Raphoe was having a cup of tea.

The defendant’s solicitor, Mr Rory O’Brien, told the court that in his 15 years at the court he had never encountered a case where he had more sympathy for the defendant.

He said his client was forced to put her nursing career on hold because of the assault allegations against her.

Mr O’Brien said he did not condone violence but said the facts were that Ms McGinley had been Ms McCarron’s best friend and a godmother to her son for seven years.

He added Ms McGinley even cooked for Ms McCarron’s son earlier that day because it was his birthday.

“This young lady introduced this man into her life and into the lives of her two children. She saw a future in this man and discussed him with her best friend,” Mr O’Brien said.

In light of the verdict in the case, Judge Alan Mitchell asked if Ms McCarron and Mr Tinney were still in a relationship and was told they were not.

He said Ms McCarron could have done the best on the night of the incident to turn on her heels and have nothing more to do with McGinley or Tinney.

Addressing Ms McCarron, who was being accompanied to court by her mother, Judge Mitchell said he would not let her go entirely, however.

He said he thought a charitable donation would be appropriate.

“I might see what you did, but I don’t condone it,” he said, before adding that what happened to her in no way justified her attacking McGinley or Tinney.

He added that a message needs to be sent that there is a right way and a wrong way to deal with problems and that people cannot take the law into their own hands.

He said if Ms McCarron, of St Eunan’s Terrace in Raphoe, made a €500 donation to St Vincent de Paul, he would drop the charges and apply the Probation Act.

He stressed that it should be noted that neither Ms McGinley nor Mr Tinney should be given an order for compensation.

McCarron later produced a receipt for the donation and the cases were dropped.