EXCLUSIVE: 'I have no anger at my son's attacker,' says mum of Longford man left with brain injury after 'unprovoked' one punch attack

Twenty-year-old former Mercy Secondary School, Ballymahon student Zac Martin sustained a life changing brain injury, spent weeks in hospital and survived emergency surgery following an incident along Ballymahon's Main Street during the early hours of November 13, 2021.

His attacker, Sean McCormack (21), Rath Reagh, Smithfield, Legan, Co Longford, was handed down a 12 month prison sentence at a sitting of Mullingar Circuit Criminal Court last Thursday after the Legan man pleaded guilty to assault causing serious harm.

In an emotionally charged and exclusive interview with the Longford Leader from the family home on Sunday evening, his mother Phyllis Baker said while all her focus was on aiding her beloved son’s continued recovery, she harboured no ill feeling towards his assailant.

“I have no anger or bitterness towards Sean McCormack,” she said.

“I have a lot of empathy for him and for his family.

“I have no doubt about the impact this has had on their lives and I certainly wouldn't want to say or do anything to make that any worse for them.

“I am a mother and my heart goes out to his mother because it can’t be easy what she has to face and will have to face.

“I hope in time that Sean McCormack will move on with his life, that he will learn from this and that it will make him a better person and that the friends around him in his life will learn from it as well.”

Those lessons Phyllis alluded to surrounded the harrowing details of over a year and a half earlier that were played out in front of presiding Judge Keenan Johnson and a hushed courtroom to boot.

The court heard the “cowardly assault” on her son was meted out as an “act of bravado” as Zac began walking home after a verbal row broke out between him and another man.

The court heard how McCormack, who had been sitting in a car watching events unfold, suddenly got out and ran towards Zac before striking him once from behind on the back of his head.

The blow caused the young Longford man to fall face first to the ground in a move which left him fighting for his life in hospital.

In a telling and hard hitting victim impact statement, Zac told of how the incident and its life altering after effects have taken its toll on him and his family.

“I know that I was an innocent victim on November 13 2021 when I was targeted by Sean McCormack," he said.

"I have struggled to accept that the reason that I have had to go through all of this physical and mental trauma is because I was assaulted to make people laugh.

“I wish it had never happened but there is nothing that I could go back and change.”

He also said the episode had forced him to put off following his own dreams of pursuing a career in counselling.

“I was interested in a career where I could help people but I don’t feel ready to move away from home and from my family support which is so important to me,” he said.

“I am trying to rebuild my confidence and self-esteem and I don’t want to take on too much too soon.

“My brain injury hasn’t just affected me, it has affected my whole family. It makes me very sad when I think about all the worry, anxiety and stress my parents and sister have had to go through because of the assault on me.”

They were remarks which led Judge Johnson to hail the young man as “truly inspirational” and “mature beyond his years”, sentiments which clearly struck a chord within the Baker/Martin family unit.

“I think that justice for me came in the form of the judge’s words towards Zac,” added Phyllis. “He was so encouraging of him, he was so compassionate towards him, he gave him great praise and while that wasn’t part of the sentence itself, it was still part of Zac feeling better about himself and gave him a sense of pride in how far he has come. That’s a part of the process of justice that people don’t see.

“It had a lot of meaning for us as a family to listen to his words. Justice isn’t always about retribution, vengeance, revenge or anything like that.

“We are finding it very hard to settle with knowing that a young lad is going to jail for something he did to our son.”

Phyllis’ remarkable sense of concern for the man responsible for leaving her son with a life changing brain injury is indicative of a woman and mother who has dedicated much of the past 18 months or more to making a real and concerted difference.

Since Zac’s injury, Phyllis has held countless fundraisers and conquered her own fears by abseiling down Dublin’s Smithfield Tower, all in the name of raising funds for Acquired Brain Injury Ireland (ABII).

It was a move which has seen Phyllis raise in the region of €20,000, a figure that looks set to rise still further when she takes on the Dublin Marathon in October.

She described the drive as “my justice” and her way of counteracting a criminal justice compensation system she could not be more at odds with.

“The word that comes to mind for me personally when it comes to the word compensation is vulgar,” she said, despite the court compelling McCormack to hand over €30,000 to her son as part of his sentence.

“When Zac was in a critical condition I remember my brother said to me: ‘Phyllis, if we had all the money in the world to give you now, it’s no good to you’.

“Zac was very lucky. He had a home to come home to where we managed to pay our bills, I didn’t work for a while and I was able to look after him.

“But what is the cost of a crime? Well, the cost of a crime cannot always be paid back in monetary value.

“The cost of a crime is also emotional. It has been traumatic for us, it has caused huge stress, anxiety, worry, it’s like a ripple effect in the whole family.

“I was grieving the loss of my dad seven months earlier from a brain tumour. Here I was back in Beaumont again and Zac woke up in the same bed as my dad. It was horrendous, so the cost of a crime, you can try to compensate somebody for their financial loss, but the parts of a crime that are emotional, psychological, that traumatic element you can never compensate anybody for.”

It’s a mindset that’s as extraordinary as it is refreshing and one which goes a long way towards underlining the strength of a woman and family that has in no small way steadily nurtured Zac’s continued rehabilitation.

For Phyllis and her husband Paul, it’s a case of pursuing a path which has served them and more importantly their beloved son and daughter so advantageously since the devastating events of November 13, 2021.

“There won’t be a day that goes by when I won’t think of Sean McCormack and his family. We can’t just forget what they are having to go through because it is all part of what has happened,” she added.

“I think we are going to keep doing what we are doing because that is what has worked for us which, rather than looking back with bitterness, anger and vengeance, is to try to turn something bad into something good for others.

“That is what we will take from it. It will help us to resolve all of those feelings and for us to look back and hopefully give as good an example to our children as we possibly can.”