A man, charged with sexually assaulting a female paramedic at Craigavon Area Hospital in March this year, was “set upon” in Portadown town centre on Thursday night when he left his house to get cigarettes as disorder erupted following an ‘anti-immigration’ protest.
Details were given to Craigavon Magistrates’ Court on Friday regarding 38-year-old Arturas Mackevicius with an address in Portadown.
The charge he faces is that on March 21 this year he ‘intentionally touched … the circumstances being that the touching was sexual, that she did not consent to the touching and you did not reasonably believe that … so consented’.
He was on bail in relation to that allegation and was brought to court for breaching a bail condition regarding not to be intoxicated in public. The breach is accepted.
It was discovered he had taken alcohol on Thursday.
Objecting to bail, a police officer said the defendant was found intoxicated in Edward Street in Portadown.
The officer said: “There appears to have been an altercation between himself and another unknown person”.
The court was told the defendant had previously breached police bail on April 8 regarding alcohol.
The officer said the defendant has “no record”.
A defence lawyer said the defendant had been “back home in his own country for some days and returned here. He consumed Jack Daniel’s in his own house and he wasn’t aware of anything going to take place last night as he had only come back into the country”.
The defendant had gone to get cigarettes and had “little or no memory of what happened last night” but “probably because of his appearance he was set upon. You can see obvious injuries to his face and to his head. He became a victim.”
When police had gone to assist him the bail breach came to light.
The defendant had spent the night in the cells before bring brought to court.
The solicitor said the defendant is a “hard worker” and “has been in the country for a number of years”.
Regarding the March 21 allegation, the solicitor said the defendant is “not going to contest the factual circumstances as set out by the witness”.
He said there may be an issue to be explored as the defendant had a “pre-existing serious head injury a year before” and the defence have already requested his hospital records to see if that has any impact on his “recall and his memory and his functioning at the relevant time because he was genuinely at the facility for a genuine reason when the incident happened. So the court is going to be dealing with intention as opposed to any challenge to what the person says”.
The solicitor added: “It is just maybe his fondness for Jack Daniel’s which seems to be the problem”.
The defendant had the assistance of an interpreter at court.
District Judge Michael Ranaghan said it was the second bail breach regarding alcohol “and it also seems to have lead to something unfortunate last night”.
The judge said if the defendant was remanded in custody it “might mean that he loses his job so he gets one last chance to comply with his bail conditions”.
Bail was granted on the same original terms was granted.
The case was adjourned to June 18.
