A west Belfast victim of a vicious sectarian assault inside a Liverpool bar has spoken of the months in pain, the psychological effect and thousands spent fixing his broken teeth in the lead up to his wedding.
Connell Cunningham was on a friend’s stag night in the city with others when he was attacked from behind, punched on the side of the head, which then smashed against a table. It took just seconds.
His attacker, 22-year-old Garren Hughes, then raised his arms and shouted, “Come on, you Fenian bas***ds”, before being restrained and thrown out of McCooley’s in Temple Court in Liverpool city centre.
Hughes, who was drunk and high on cocaine at the time of the assault, was sentenced to 30 months in prison, half on licence, on Monday for racially or religiously aggravated grievous bodily harm in March 2022.
Sentencing Hughes in the city’s Crown Court, Judge Ian Harris said: “There is no other reason I can discern for the attack. He was out with friends, they were Irish, it was his stag night.”
Mr Cunningham, a 29-year-old who runs Cunningham Cars in Ladybrook, revealed how the nerve endings in his mouth were exposed following the attack, which left one front tooth gone, the other snapped in half and other damage done.
He was told he will have trouble with the teeth for the rest of his life and is left with a permanent scar on his cheek after suffering a three-inch open gash beneath his right eye and a cut to his right lower eyelid.
Months of treatment followed as Mr Cunningham spent just over £4,600 on fixing his teeth ahead of his own wedding to wife Niamh in December of 2022.
“Treatment had only just finished by the time I got married,” Mr Cunningham told the Irish News.
Mr Cunningham and his friends were all sitting around a table and watching Michael Conlan’s fight with Leigh Wood.
CCTV footage shows Hughes, alone in the pub as his friends had already left, visibly intoxicated and talking to strangers, antagonising people.
“For a split second I turned to talk to my friend and that’s when he smacked me in the side of the head. My head then went down on the table,” Mr Cunningham said.
Hughes then raised his arms and shouted the “Fenians” remark.
“Me and our mates are a kind of a sensible bunch. Our lads held people back as others got him out,” the west Belfast man explained.
Mr Cunningham believes the restraint shown by his friends led to Hughes being charged, convicted and sentenced to a hefty penalty.
“It would not have gone as far because police initially thought it was just another Saturday night fight, but it was not like that.” Hughes continued to struggle with staff inside and outside the bar.
Mr Cunningham, in serious pain, was first looked after by a student nurse on the scene, then taken to hospital. He was allowed to get a plane home for an emergency visit to the dentist. It cost £500 to open the doors of the dental surgery on a Sunday.
Ten dental appointments followed, with three or four root canal treatments and new implants before his marriage later that year.
In his impact statement, Mr Cunnigham wrote: “I’ll never be the same again. I had to get married with a scar on my face and I found it hard to enjoy myself at my own wedding.”
He told how his self-confidence had been damaged, had suffered nightmares and had needed counselling sessions.
Hughes, now 25, of Stewart Street, Crewe, Cheshire, prior to trial pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm but denied a religious or racial motivation.
Mr Cunningham said he claimed to have shouted “thieving b****rds” following the attack, a defence dismissed by the court.
His attacker faced up to a seven-year sentence due to the sectarian element but that the judge noted Hughes’ otherwise “law abiding life”.
Judge Harris said Hughes had cocaine powder on his nose at the time of the attack.
“Offences like this stain the nature of night life in Liverpool city centre. Your attack also affected the victim’s enjoyment of his own wedding,” the judge said, adding he was satisfied it was racially or religiously motivated.
The judge said that the incident was captured on CCTV and showed the defendant walking across the bar and approaching Mr Cunningham from behind.
“Without any provocation or cause you punched him forcibly to the face. It was a cowardly attack, your victim had no chance to defend himself.
“You were clearly in the mood to inflict violence and would have carried on if you had the opportunity.”
Frances Willmott, defending, said that Hughes had admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm but had denied any racial motivation.
She pointed out that he was only 22 at the time and has no previous convictions, although has cautions for assault and drunk and disorderly.
He had offered to apologise to the victim face to face and after this was declined he wrote him a letter which demonstrates his growing maturity, she said.