Criminology and Psychology

  A BRUTAL gangland thug was spared even more jail time after he admitted his role in a savage assault on a criminal who became a supergrass in a high profile murder trial. Crumlin gangster Ian 'Mad Dog' Maloney (25) repeatedly kicked Joey O'Brien in the head as he lay semi-conscious in Charlie's Restaurant, Dame Street, on January 4, 2009. sickening Maloney -- who was connected to 'Fat' Freddie Thompson's mob -- is currently serving a 12-year sentence for the €1.2m armed robbery of Paul Sheeran Jewellers in Dundrum Town Centre on September 3, 2008. Just four months after that robbery he subjected Joey O'Brien -- the State's 'star witness' in a murder trial last summer -- to a beating which a judge yesterday described as "sickening". Self-confessed Crumlin drug dealer O'Brien -- who is now in the witness protection programme -- gave the key testimony that helped secure the conviction of gangland killer Peter Kenny (30), fro...