A delivery cyclist accused of the murder of teenager Josh Dunne has been accused of being evasive and dishonest in his evidence he gave to gardaí and to the court.
In his closing argument to the jury, Sean Guerin for the prosecution also said the fact that George Gonzaga Bento repeatedly stabbed the 16-year-old boy in the chest, while the boy was defending his friends, showed his clear intention was to kill or cause serious injury.
But in his summing up to the jury, Padraig Dwyer for the defence said Mr Bento was the victim of a set of circumstances and events that combined together to produce a terrible tragedy.
Mr Dwyer said Mr Bento never had an intention to kill or cause serious injury and that his only intention was to get away from the situation and save his own life and that of his friend.
Mr Bento, a 36-year-old Brazilian national, with an address in East Wall in Dublin 3 is charged with murdering 16-year-old Josh Dunne at East Wall Road, East Wall on 26 January 2021.
Mr Bento is also accused of producing an article in a manner likely to intimidate another in the course of a dispute or fight, namely a utility knife.
The defendant is further accused of assault causing harm to two other young men on the same occasion.
He has pleaded not guilty to each of the four counts.
The prosecution alleges that Mr Bento, a delivery cyclist, produced a knife during a "stand-off or confrontation" with a man on a moped who had stolen another delivery cyclist's bike.
Josh and other youths arrived at the scene and got involved in the confrontation.
Mr Bento told gardaí in his interviews that he had used a knife to defend himself from the man on the moped and the gang of youths.
He said it was only his intention to intimidate them when he took out the knife and make them go away.
Mr Bento said he stabbed the first and second males who punched and attacked him as he was scared and wanted to protect himself.
In his closing statement to the jury of seven women and five men, Mr Guerin said there had been reference during the trial to a number of incidents that Mr Bento had experienced while working as a delivery cyclist.
These included having an engine revved at him and water being thrown at him. But Mr Guerin said these were "low-level" incidents.
He said there were two ways of looking at these experiences. He said they may have led to Mr Bento feeling "a greater sense of danger", but he said another way of looking at it could be that he had "had enough" of being abused and decided he was going to do something about it.
He said Mr Bento had given evidence that he wanted to go after the man on the moped who was stealing the bike and "give him a fright".
Mr Guerin said while he took no issue with him trying to get the bike back, he said the question of giving someone a fright "smacks of taking the law into one's own hands".
He also told the jury that the CCTV was "invaluable" as it allowed them to put together a chronology of what happened.
Mr Guerin said this footage shows that Mr Bento gave a different account to gardaí and to the court of when he produced the knife. He said the production of the knife was a "serious escalation of the incident".
He also described the knife used as "vicious and very dangerous looking" and said no one could have had it in their hand and not realised how dangerous it was.
Counsel said the stabbing itself was "forceful and violent to the core of the body". He said there are gradations of force, but that Mr Bento went to "the top of the scale" when he "plunged a knife into the core of three human bodies".
Mr Guerin said the CCTV also showed Josh holding the moped but that he was not behaving "violently or aggressively". He said the group of teenagers, including Josh, had been behaving lawfully and unremarkably up to the point they became involved.
He said Mr Bento had continually exaggerated the danger that existed and his reaction.
Mr Guerin also accused Mr Bento of repeated and continuous efforts to conceal what he had done from gardaí and to escape the consequences of his actions.
He said the account of what happened that he gave to his partner was "self-serving and obviously false".
The barrister said Mr Bento had also given a false account of when he realised someone had died in the incident and the true timeline had come to light through deleted WhatsApp messages.
He also asked the jury to put out of their mind and bias or sympathy they may feel towards the accused.
Mr Guerin said while Mr Bento had "lamented" the 16 months he had spent in custody accused of the murder, he said these 16 months represented a month for every year of Josh Dunne's life and that Mr Bento’s application for bail had been refused because he was deemed a flight risk.
In his closing statement to the jury, Mr Dwyer for the defence said Mr Bento was a good, honest and hardworking man and father who had lived an unblemished life and always avoided trouble.
He said he was loved, like and admired by friends and colleagues and that the first witnesses had said that Mr Bento had saved his life or saved him from much more serious injury on the night in question.
He said Mr Bento was a compassionate and emphatic man who had said he was sorry for what happened to Josh Dunne "it is the last thing he wanted, last thing he intended and if he could do anything to bring him back than he would".
Mr Dwyer said the responsibility for the tragedy lay with the man on the motorbike and "other people", who he said had launched a "savage, horrific, vicious attack on two innocent people going about their work".
He said Mr Bento had made a mistake that night in trying to stop a crime. He said it was a mistake that Irish people do not make because they know that if you try to stop a crime you may become a victim yourself.
Mr Dwyer said the knife used by Mr Bento was a fruit knife, which he used on his daily work to cut fruit and that he never had an intention to kill or cause serious injury.
He said Mr Bento's one intention was to get away from the incident and to save his own life and save the life of his companion. He said his intentions were always good and never bad.
The barrister said Mr Bento has acted honestly on the night and exercised his right to self-defence and to the defence of another person. He said his initial interaction with the thief was calm, measured and not aggressive.
He said when the attack started Mr Bento and his companion were getting on their bikes to leave the scene.
"They had given up on doing the right thing because they saw the danger coming, but they never had a chance because an unmerciful attack was launched on them," Mr Dwyer said.
He said the group involved wanted to administer a "punishment beating" and he said when they gave evidence they tried to "whitewash" their involvement.
The barrister told the jury one eyewitness said they were afraid to be seen to be calling gardaí to the scene and that the atmosphere during the incident was deadly, dangerous, ugly and unlawful, and that attacks were "sustained".
Defence says Bento 'not a killer'
Mr Dwyer said the prosecution had tried to argue that Mr Bento could have used force that was proportionate, but he said that is not the way real life operates.
He said: "When you’re measuring reasonable force you do what you need to do to save your life and that might involve using any means at your disposal.
"There is no measuring scales for reasonable force, you can’t weigh it in grams or kilos, you can’t measure it in centimetres, it’s whatever you honestly believe in the circumstances."
He said it was inconceivable that Mr Bento would "go out there as a vigilante" and "turn his life upside down". He said the only dishonesty in the case was from the witnesses who were engaged in the attack.
Mr Dwyer said discrepancies in Mr Bento’s account were due to the fact he had not slept in two days, that he was tired and it was difficult to remember everything that happened "frame by frame" in the course of the attack.
He said Mr Bento is not a murderer, a killer or a thug, but he belongs to a good section of society that finds crime appalling and a small section of society that will step forward to stop a crime being committed.
The barrister said Mr Bento was not thinking, he was just reacting. He said in a situation like that you act on your instincts to survive.
He said the defence was not looking for a "halfway house or compromise verdict" and he asked the jury to find Mr Bento not guilty on all counts.
Judge Paul Burns has now begun his charge to the jury and said he will continue that charge tomorrow.
