Men acquitted of assaulting Garda who were left hanging from car window while reversing



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Two men were acquitted of assaulting a garda when the officer hung from the passenger window of the vehicle while reversing at high speed.

Arda Conor Murray had said that driver Jonathan Coelho (29) and passenger Federico Carvalho (31) beat him repeatedly as he struggled to avoid being thrown out of the car.

The jury took 18 minutes to return the unanimous verdict of not guilty on the fifth day of yesterday’s trial.

Coelho, of Duleek, Co Meath, and Carvalho, of Blessington Street, Dublin, had denied causing harm to Gda Murray on July 31, 2019, on St Lukes’ Avenue, Dublin 8.

Coelho was cleared of a charge he had denied endangering by dragging Gda Murray out the passenger window.

He pleaded guilty to the dangerous driving charges.

He admitted to speeding through red lights and in the wrong direction on busy streets before crashing into a lamp post.

After the jury rendered its verdict, Judge Melanie Greally told Carvalho that he was “free to go.”

Keith Spencer, in defense of Coelho, said his client had been in custody since the date of the crime in July last year after being denied bail as a “flight risk.”

He asked for an early sentencing date for the dangerous driving charges his client had admitted to in Dublin Circuit Court.

Judge Greally postponed the case until Friday for sentencing and placed Coelho in custody.

She acknowledged that she has now spent more than a year in custody.

During the trial, the jury had heard that the car stopped at a red light when a Garda car flashed its lights.

The car then smashed red lights and during a high-speed chase it drove dangerously through city streets before crashing into a streetlight.

In an interview, Coelho said that he did not stop the car for Gardaí because he did not have insurance.

Gda Murray said he was pulling the passenger out of the car when the driver turned it back on and started backing up.

He said he had to run along the side of the car to avoid being dragged underneath.

Hand brake

“The passenger and the driver took me to the middle of the vehicle,” he said. Her upper body was inside the car and the passenger put her head in a head lock, Gda Murray said.

Gda Murray told the jury that while hanging midway from the moving car, he managed to brake the parking brake and slow the vehicle down.

Gda Murray said the driver repeatedly kicked him.

He said the driver gave him a final kick, hit him in the face, and was thrown out of the car.

In an interview, Mr. Carvalho, who was being taken home, said that he repeatedly told the driver to stop the car. He said he was terrified and that he was holding on.

He said the garda was fighting the driver. He denied ever hitting the garda and said he would never hurt anyone.

Spencer, defending Coelho, said it was not possible that his client could have taken his foot off the clutch and executed a side kick to Gda Murray’s face while keeping the other foot on the accelerator.

He said that his client’s stated intention was to flee and that there was no point in putting a garda in the car.

Oisín Clarke, in defense of Carvalho, said his client thought he was being taken home with Coelho and that he had been “an innocent participant in something that had gone horribly wrong.”

Herald

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