The employee is a counter/ shop assistant at a busy twenty-four-hour filling station in the Tirlough area of Galway City. In May 2022 the employee was working on the night shift, having commenced work at 9 pm that evening. At approximately 11 pm a person came to the hatch window of the shop and asked for cigarettes.

When the employee placed the cigarettes on the counter the customer reached in and assaulted the employee with a syringe and grabbed the cigarettes from the counter. The assailant fled from the scene and could not be identified by the CCTV cameras on site.

The employee had been provided with a perspex-type screen to prevent customers from assaulting or threatening the workers on night shifts, however, at the time of the accident, the employee did not have the screen closed as he maintained that he could not hear customers when the screen was closed.