Drogheda Court heard that the defendant was found hiding in the kitchen after his heavily pregnant then partner tried to stop the officers entering their apartment.<\/p>\n
Evidence was given of a volatile and tense situation which occurred three days before Christmas last year.<\/p>\n
Servet Rapi (40), River Court, Rathmullen Road, Drogheda, a former pizza chef, pleaded guilty to resisting Gda John Spain, but denied assaulting him and Gda Odhran Loughran.<\/p>\n
He said that he was concerned for the woman who was due to give birth any day.<\/p>\n
Gda Spain testified that at 8.10pm on December 22, 2024, he and his colleague went to the ground floor apartment at River Court with a High Court arrest warrant. They were in uniform.<\/p>\n
At the door he spoke to a female who wouldn\u2019t let them in. She continued to try to deny access.<\/p>\n
Gda Spain said that they eventually managed to get inside. Mr Rapi was found hiding behind a door in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
The witness continued that he handcuffed this man to the front. It would be normal to handcuff to the back but the defendant was against a wall and he wanted to get him out as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n
Mr Rapi became increasingly aggressive as they walked out, one garda either side of him. <\/p>\n
The woman also became more aggressive. At one point she put her hands in Gda Loughran\u2019s pocket, and Gda Spain said that he had to let go of the accused.<\/p>\n
When he turned around Mr Rapi struck into his colleague\u2019s chest with force. A struggle ensued before they managed to get the man outside.<\/p>\n
Gda Spain continued that the defendant shouldered him, causing him to fall over. The three of them ended up on the ground.<\/p>\n
They managed to restrain the defendant and get him to the patrol van before taking him to Drogheda Garda Station.<\/p>\n
Gda Spain added that he sustained a cut to an elbow. His shin was also bleeding.<\/p>\n
It was a quite volatile, tense and charged situation.<\/p>\n
Cross-examined by barrister Eoghan Fagan, the witness denied that he fell as a result of dragging Mr Rapi out.<\/p>\n
This man \u201cdefinitely lashed out\u201d at Gda Loughran.<\/p>\n
Gda Spain said that some weeks later the woman thanked him.<\/p>\n
Gda Loughran gave evidence that when he went into the kitchen he saw a large kitchen knife on a counter. The defendant was hiding behind a door.<\/p>\n
He informed him of the arrest warrant.<\/p>\n
As they were leaving, the woman continued to be disruptive. The man \u201chit me a box into the chest\u201d.<\/p>\n
The woman became aggressive again before the three men were on the ground in front of the house.<\/p>\n
Mr Rapi was saying that he had no shoes on. He was wearing shoes.<\/p>\n
Servet Rapi testified that he resisted arrest because \u201cone of the boys\u201d pushed his partner.<\/p>\n
“I resisted. They were trying to lock me up, you know. I was trying to put my shoes on.\u201d<\/p>\n
He denied pushing the guards. He said that they were not lying.<\/p>\n
“No way\u201d did he put his closed fists into the garda\u2019s chest.<\/p>\n
“I was handcuffed. I don\u2019t remember the way (I pushed him).\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued that he hid \u201cin the kitchen door\u201d. He didn\u2019t want to get arrested because his partner was due.<\/p>\n
Mr Fagan submitted that the offending behaviour was encompassed in the Section 19 (3) matter, and that a plea in that respect dealt with the totality of conduct.<\/p>\n
Two \u201csuperfluous\u201d Section 2 assault charges could be dismissed, he suggested.<\/p>\n
Gda Inspector Kevin Toner replied that those charges were not superfluous.<\/p>\n
Judge Nicola Andrews said she was satisfied that the defendant\u2019s behaviour went beyond what was contained in the Section 19 offence and \u201ctrespassed into Section 2 assault\u201d.<\/p>\n
She convicted Mr Rapi of assaulting both garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n
The court was told of nine previous convictions, including for public order, uninsured driving and speeding.<\/p>\n
Mr Fagan said that his client was originally from Albania and for 18 years worked as a pizza chef.<\/p>\n
Judge Andrews remanded Servet Rapi on continuing bail to January 19 for a community service report.<\/p>\n
If he was not deemed suitable for community service the judge said that she would deal with this by way of a custodial sentence.<\/p>\n
Legal aid was granted and the court certified for counsel.<\/p>\n
Funded by the Courts Reporting Scheme<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drogheda Court heard that the defendant was found hiding in the kitchen after his heavily pregnant then partner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13691,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-188413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-francis-carroll","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}