Former boxing world champion Joe Cordina has been cleared of assaulting a man he punched outside a petrol station.<\/p>\n
A district judge found Cordina, 34, not guilty of assault by beating against Jamie O’Brien, 33, following a trial at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court.<\/p>\n
The court heard Cordina had been filling up his Land Rover at Pentwyn service station in Cardiff in February when he noticed O’Brien staring at him.<\/p>\n
Cordina, a two-time IBF super-featherweight champion, approached O’Brien – who was sitting on the pavement near the station exit – believing he was a fan.<\/p>\n
Judge Charlotte Murphy described how O’Brien then “shoulder barged him to the chest and chin”, in what she found was a “deliberate assault” on Cordina.<\/p>\n
She highlighted that the attack had taken place just two weeks after Cordina had been told by police that there was a threat to his life.<\/p>\n
In her ruling, the judge said: “I am satisfied that the defendant believed it was necessary to use force to defend himself.<\/p>\n
“I am further satisfied that a single, measured, controlled punch was proportionate in the circumstances.<\/p>\n
“It is very easy to consider the defendant’s response by considering the CCTV in slow motion, however the defendant had a split second to consider his response to the shoulder barge.”<\/p>\n
The judge said she accepted Cordina’s evidence that he had repeatedly pushed O’Brien “while on the floor to keep him away from him”.<\/p>\n
“In my view, it was necessary and the force used was proportionate in the circumstances,” she added.<\/p>\n
“I reject any suggestion that the defendant was retaliating in any way.<\/p>\n
“This is a person who has lived in the public eye for many years and has interacted with the public on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
“For all of those reasons, the crown has not proved to the criminal standard. I therefore find the defendant not guilty and dismiss the charge.”<\/p>\n
The judge had previously ruled there was no case to answer in relation to the second charge of assault.<\/p>\n
CCTV footage played to the court showed O’Brien pushing Cordina with his shoulder, before Cordina punched him.<\/p>\n
O’Brien, from Pentwyn, previously pleaded guilty to a charge of assault by beating.<\/p>\n
Police began to investigate the incident after footage was circulated online. The judge ruled on Tuesday there was no evidence that O’Brien knew the person who was filming.<\/p>\n
She added that Cordina had approached O’Brien “in good faith”, believing he was a fan.<\/p>\n
During the trial, Cordina said he initially thought O’Brien wanted a photograph and described how he was accustomed to being recognised four or five times a day.<\/p>\n
He told the court he had acted in self-defence because he felt threatened after O’Brien assaulted him.<\/p>\n
“He had his hands in his pockets, I don’t know what people carry on them these days,” Cordina said.<\/p>\n
After the case, Cordina’s lawyer Nadeem Majid issued a statement to the media.<\/p>\n
He said: “Today’s verdict is a huge relief for Joe and everybody who is close to him.<\/p>\n
“He has always maintained he is innocent throughout this.<\/p>\n
“On behalf of Joe, I’d like to thank his family, his friends, his loyal fans, his legal team for their unwavering support through what’s clearly been a very difficult time.<\/p>\n
“Joe would now like to concentrate on his family and in particular his boxing. We’d all like to see him on the bill in December. Thank you all very much.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former boxing world champion Joe Cordina has been cleared of assaulting a man he punched outside a petrol…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-940346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}