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John McGahon
Fine Gael senator accused of assault put his arm around wife of alleged victim, court hears
Fine Gael Senator John McGahon is on trial in Dundalk after pleading not guilty to a charge of assault.
THE WIFE OF a man in his 50s who Fine Gael Senator John McGahon is accused of seriously assaulting, has told Dundalk Circuit Court that the defendant had put his arm around her and said “come on you’re coming home with me” or “come with me” and pulled her in the opposite direction to where she was going.
Mr McGahon (31) of Faughart Gardens, St. Mary’s Road, Dundalk is on trial, having pleaded not guilty to a charge of assaulting Breen White causing him harm on Park Street, Dundalk on 16 June 2018.
This morning when his cross-examination by the defence resumed, Breen White denied pulling the accused to the ground outside “The Rum House” or pushing him into the centre of the pavement.
When Senior Counsel Hugh Hartnett put it to him that he had a grip of Mr McGahon by the throat, he replied “I never had a grip of John by the neck”.
When CCTV footage was replayed for the jury, and Mr Hartnett asked if he saw his hand on the defendant’s throat, Mr White said the accused had been poking at him “being a bully” and when he was asked if he had pushed him out onto the street, he replied “No”.
Mr White said it was a friend of the defendant who was trying to defuse the situation and told the accused ‘to cop himself on’.
When the footage was paused, Senior Counsel asked him to explain the article on his client’s face, Mr White said “I don’t know. It’s not my hand”. He later claimed the accused had fallen as he was drunk and from the momentum of his friend who had intervened.
When he was asked again if he had pushed Mr McGahon, Mr White replied “I would have pushed him to stop him attacking me”. He also denied dragging or driving the accused to the ground and responded “definitely not” when the Senior Counsel suggested he was on top of the defendant in a still from the footage.
Mr Hartnett put it to Mr White that the accused “after his being placed on the ground and you on top of him, defended himself against your attacks”.
The witness replied “That’s not true” and he denied making it up as he was going along.
When the Senior Counsel suggested the ‘maul’ of his wife which Mr White had referred to on the first day of the trial “was an arm around a shoulder in a friendly way”, the complainant replied “I didn’t see it that way” and Mr Hartnett said “You got aggravated” at Mr McGahon’s attempt to explain himself to you.
Mr White’s wife Linda told the jury she had held her blazer up over her head, as she was about to walk out of The Rum House as it was drizzling, when she felt someone coming around with their arm who said “come on you’re coming home with me or come with me”. She said the arm was swaying or pulling her in the opposite direction that she going.
She said she didn’t know him and just waved him away and added that she was standing in under a ledge with her husband out of the rain, when Mr McGahon stood in front of them and started questioning her husband, asking him who he was, and then saying “can she not speak for herself”.
She said Mr White told him that he was her husband and to go away but the witness said the accused was within arms reach of them, “poking” her husband in the chest.
The witness described him as an upstart and said that Mr McGahon was ‘shouldering and chesting’ her husband.
Ms White claimed the accused was aggressive and sneering and Mr White told him to get back and stop poking him.
She said three of Mr McGahon’s friends were pushing him back, but he broke free and brought her husband to the ground.
She said these men were pulling him off her husband, and claimed the accused was on top of Breen “thumping him and thumping him” while he was ‘flat on the ground’.
When Mr Hartnett asked if she remembered her husband pushing his client out onto the street, Ms White said no and she remembered him trying to stop Mr McGahon hitting him.
“It was John that was coming for Breen all the time,” Ms White said.
She replied “I think he slipped there” when it was put to her that the accused had been pulled to the ground by her husband.
Ms White replied “He was poking at him, he was pushing at him” when the defence suggested the accused had been gesticulating at her husband.
Ms White also denied that Mr McGahon was the victim saying, “Breen didn’t attack John. John attacked Breen”.
Mr White’s son Cormac Rafferty told the jury he had parked across the street from The Rum House and crossed over to tell Ms White where he was parked when he claimed “Out of nowhere there was a scuffle”.
He added that the next thing he saw was Mr White lying on the ground being punched repeatedly on the head by John McGahon whose friends were trying to pull him off his father.
During cross-examination, Mr Rafferty said what he had witnessed happened within seconds of his arrival at the scene and he’d never seen anything as scary as that in his entire life.
However, he acknowledged that he had not seen what led up to what he had witnessed.
The trial continues tomorrow before 11 jurors – four men and seven women after one of the jury members was taken ill last night.
