A teenager who claims to have been attacked during a row outside a pub in Newcastle Co Tipperary in 2006 was cross examined this afternoon.
South Tipperary Deputy Mattie McGrath (FF) and five other defendants have denied charges of committing violent disorder on 14 August 2006 in the village and of assaulting 19-year-old Timothy Cleere causing him harm.
Mr Cleere agreed with Paddy McCarthy SC, for Mr McGrath, that the politician had tried to act as peacemaker when arguments first broke out near a car park in the village.
Mr Cleere denied that he himself went up to the politician and gestured towards his chest with his finger, saying 'ye had a good f…ing day, we hadn't'. A vintage car rally had taken place in Newcastle that day.
Mattie McGrath got into the passenger seat of a car and made a 'phone call.
Mr McCarthy put it to Timothy Cleere in the witness box that he said to Mattie McGrath, 'go ring your f…ing friends the guards'.
This was denied, as was an allegation that he dropped his trousers and put his buttocks against the car window.
He said he did not make an initial complaint to the gardaí about being assaulted because he was in shock and traumatised after the incidents.
'I thought I was going to get killed,' he said. He said he was receiving counselling as a result.
Mr Cleere said that he was hit over the head with a bottle by Mattie McGrath's son Edmond.
His friend Eric Reith tried to intervene but Mattie McGrath held Mr Reith back.
The alleged injured party denied that it was he who hit Edmond McGrath over the head with a bottle.
He also denied being drunk on the night taunting people in the village and behaving in a menacing manner towards Mattie McGrath.
Mr Cleere's evidence concluded this evening and the trial resumes tomorrow at Clonmel Circuit Court.
