A Brazilian Deliveroo rider has been found NOT guilty of murdering 16-year-old Josh Dunne during a fight over a stolen bike in the East Wall area of Dublin last year.
George Gonzaga Bento, who was living in Dublin 3 at the time, admitted stabbing the Ballymun teenager but insisted he was acting in self-defence when he did so.
CCTV footage of the fight that led to Mr Dunne’s death showed Mr Bento and his friend approaching a man on a moped on East Wall Rd. They suspected he had stolen a fellow food delivery man’s bike.
A group of young boys on bikes arrived at the scene moments later. An older men arrived on foot soon afterwards and all of them got involved. Josh Dunne included.
Bento insisted he had no intention of hurting anyone, claiming the knife he used to cut fruit with became a means with which to defend himself and his friend.
Self-defence can completely clear a person of wrongdoing if it can be shown that it was justified and that reasonable force was used and that was the outcome in this case.
Mr Bento is now free to walk out of the courthouse after spending almost a year and a half in custody.
He was also cleared of assault causing harm to two others during that fight and of producing a knife with the intention of intimidating another person.
The jury returned with their unanimous verdicts after just over eight hours of deliberations.
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