A friend in Need... 22nd February 2008

'A friend in need is a friend indeed' is a slightly ambiguous phrase. It could mean that true friends will help you out when you need it. A slightly less favourable interpretation is that 'someone who needs your help will become firendly in order to obtain it'.
There was a shining example in Buncrana this week of what true friendship can mean - it can mean forgiving someone when nobody would blame you for hoping they rot in jail.Friends are the people who bail you out when you can’t, or won’t, go to your family for support. Friends share the highs and lows and often wind up in trouble together. We love them, yet they can infuriate and annoy us better than anyone else. Where would we be without them?As John Lennon remarked, people ‘get by’ with a little help from their friends.If you are short a tenner for a few pints on a Friday night - a friend will usually sub you.If you have been dumped on Valentine’s Day - a friend will usually tolerate your incessant and high pitched whining for a while at least (and then sub you a tenner so you can drown your sorrows with someone else and torture them instead).If you find yourself in front of a judge, and facing possible jail time, for punching and kicking one of your friends in the head outside a nigthclub - a friend (who also happens to be the victim) will, on your behalf, appeal to the judge for leniency. Aye, right!If any “buddy” of mine decided to show his affection by booting me in the head whilst I’m lying flat on my back, that friendship would pretty much be over there and then. Emphatically.But that was the remarkable chain of events when Martin Quinn did what he could to help out his friend. It was one of the most refreshing stories I have heard in ages.In case you missed it, here’s the story so far:Buncrana court was told that Cathal Doherty, 24, became abusive towards a bouncer outside a nightclub when his friend, Martin Quinn, intervened.So far, so typical of any weekend in any town. A fight then broke out and Doherty ended up kicking Quinn in the head as he
was lying on the ground. Charming.Quinn passed out and awoke with a sore neck and hip. He had suffered compression of a vertebrae resulting from the kick and had to attend nine months of physiotheraphy. Thankfully, he made a full recovery.I’d imagine that nine months of physiotherapy would be a long and frustrating time in which grudges could easily take root. It is a time spent trying to retrain your body to carry out actions and movements you had taken for granted, and painlessly, up until the trauma was inflicted.After detailing evidence of his injuries, Quinn asked the Judge to be as lenient as possible when sentencing Doherty. He said: “He’s come to my house with his Mum and apologised, I’m sure that he won’t do it again.“We went to the same school and played football together. I wouldn’t like to see him wasted. I would like to ask for the minimum sentence possible.
We’ve made up.”Judge Desmond Zaidan told Quinn: “It’s a credit to you that, having had to attend physio for nine months, you can forgive him and ask for leniency.‘Fine young man’“You are a very good person, a fine young man, for doing this.”According to news reports, at this point both Doherty and his mother were in tears. It sounds like the finale of a rather dodgy movie where everyone hugs and kisses and it’s all ok in the end... but this REALLY happened.The judge told Doherty: “You see what he is doing for you, what a good person we have here, and consider what you did to him.”The story hasn’t ended yet and Doherty could still face up to 12 months imprisonment when he is sentenced in May, but tha
t’s not the point. When we are constantly told that 17-25 are remorseless thugs who happily smash each other’s heads-in, it’s nice to see a story in which a drunken, brutal action is followed by genuine remorse and forgiveness.Every week the papers are filled with remorseless scumbags who kick, or stone, a father to death over something as trivial as a football. We see it on our own streets when louts, hammered on cheap cider, roam the city centre and attack anything or anybody that looks at them.It’s refreshing to see that not everyone is as selfish as the thugs who hand out random beatings.Things could have turned out much, much worse for Martin Quinn when he was kicked in the head. I’m sure he knows that himself, and Doherty must have thought about it at some stage, but, despite that, he has taken the decision of forgiveness. Fair play to him, he’s a better man than most.