Accused denies shoving man's head through glass door
A Dublin accountant has denied he shoved a former Ericsson engineer’s head through a glass door at a house party four years ago.
Brian Keane told his counsel that he had wanted to “put space” between Mr Jairo Diaz and his then girlfriend, Ms Mary Lawlor, because he saw the complainant move his hand down her back and tug a string on her top which looked like it might have caused the garment to fall down if loosened.
Mr Keane denied he pushed Mr Diaz through the glass or “used force to get his head to go through the door”, explaining that he had stopped to release the complainant from his grip halfway down the hall.
He said he was able to prevent himself falling by placing a free hand against a wooden panel beside the glass as Mr Diaz held onto the other hand and brought it with him through the door.
Mr Keane (aged 28) of Glenlyon Park, Knocklyon, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assaulting Mr Diaz (aged 33) causing him harm by forcing him through a glass door at a Good Friday party at Richelieu Park, Sandyford between April 14 and 15, 2006.
Mr Keane told Mr Paul Greene SC, defending, that he is not a violent man, had never been in an incident like this before or since and that he was shocked when he saw blood on the complainant.
He said: “I was pretty much in disbelief when it first happened, then when I saw the blood I guess I went into shock.”
He said he wasn’t sober at the time, but “nowhere near messy drunk”.
The accused denied he was annoyed “to the point of being angry” when Ms Fiona Murphy BL, prosecuting, put it to him that he was “somewhat aggressive” in getting a message to Mr Diaz to back off from Ms Lawlor.
Ms Murphy put it to him that “you don’t manhandle someone and expect there to be no consequences.”
Mr Keane replied that he used the “absolute minimum” force necessary and had stopped the motion further down the hall.
He said “The force of us tripping caused us to fall across the glass and break it.”
He told Ms Murphy he had cuts on his hand from when Mr Diaz brought it with him through the door.
Ms Lawlor gave evidence that her ex-boyfriend, who is not an emotional person, had been “in tears” after the incident.
She described the complainant as “a bit drunk and sleezy” during their first encounter that night and said her ex-boyfriend had placed his hand between them and gestured at Mr Diaz “as if to say: ‘That’s not on’,”
She said Mr Diaz came up to her later that night and pulled “a decorative string” on her top seconds before the incident.
She said Mr Keane then grabbed the complainant by the neck and stopped halfway down the hall, where she “thinks” Mr Diaz caught hold of her ex-boyfriend’s hands like “he was trying to fight Brian”.
She said she didn’t see Mr Keane push Mr Diaz into the door or swing a punch at him before he grabbed him by the neck.
Earlier a German witness revealed she saw the accused drag Mr Diaz towards the door and throw him into the glass from her standing position on a nearby staircase.
Ms Carolin Exner described through an interpretor how Mr Keane pushed the complainant through the door but didn’t fall into the glass himself.
Ms Exner agreed with Mr Greene that she gave her account of the incident to a German judge last November and answered questions submitted by the Irish prosecution.
Mr Greene put it to her that she told the judge Mr Keane came out of the kitchen dragging the other man behind him on the ground.
Ms Exner said she recalled the man was not fully on the ground.
She confirmed she gave her first account of the event in writing to gardaí in mid 2007 and agreed it was difficult to recall “every detail” when Mr Greene suggested that all she can give now is “an impression” of what happened.
Ms Exner said she didn’t see Mr Diaz’s hands on the accused man’s hands or see Mr Keane fall through the door.
She added that she recalled Mr Keane holding Mr Diaz with one hand around the back of his neck.
A consultant ophthalmologist told Ms Murphy that a triangular shaped glass shard had lodged in Mr Diaz’s nose after passing through his eye, perforating the cornea and causing its insides to spill out of the wound.
Professor Louis Collum said he managed to save the eye but knew before he started operating that “the prognosis was poor for vision”.
Prof Collum said Mr Diaz had consented to the eye’s extraction before surgery.
The trial continues before Judge Tony Hunt and a jury of nine men and three women.
