A WOMAN who knew British tourist Julian Harrington, who has admitted killing a local teenager in Protaras last July, screamed at him to stop just seconds before he rammed his car into the youth’s moped, the Larnaca criminal court heard yesterday.
According to a witness who saw the car crash into the moped, the cry came from a British woman with whom Harrington was staying, along with his girlfriend and teenage daughter.
On November 17, Harrington confessed to killing 17-year-old pillion rider Christos Papiris from Akaki by ramming his rental car into the moped he was on.
He also pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm to the 18-year-old rider of the moped, Marios Demetriou, also from Akaki.
Harrington’s two nephews, Luke Atkinson, 22, and Michael Binnington, 21, believed by police to have been in the car at the time of the incident, have pleaded not guilty to committing an illegal act which led to the death of Papiris, and causing grievous bodily harm to Demetriou.
The three Britons, all landscape gardeners from Chelmsford in England, are accused of exacting a revenge attack against Papiris and Demetriou after their friend, Adam Meek, was injured in a disco brawl. Police say Papiris and Demetriou had nothing to do with the earlier fight.
Yesterday, the State Prosecutor called up ambulance driver Demetris Alexandrou, who told the court how the rental rammed into the moped, but also spoke of Harrington and his nephews’ rage just minutes before they got into their car to chase the youngsters.
“A young boy had been brought to the clinic with head injuries… After a while I went outside and saw three boys and three girls. One of the boys was talking and I remember the other one was punching his fist into the palm of his other hand,” Alexandrou told the court.
Harrington later turned up in his rental car and Alexandrou told the court how he escorted him to the room where his friend was. By that time, said Alexandrou, he had called the police at the request of Meek’s friends, who were sitting outside the clinic.
“He came out very angry and agitated,” added Alexandrou who also said that Harrington had told him that “it was not right for Cypriots to do this”.
After a short while, Alexandrou went onto the balcony of the clinic and saw Harrington’s car pursuing Demetriou and Papiris up to the point where he heard the car slam into the moped and one of the boys fall off.
“As the car chased the moped, I heard the older British lady who was at the clinic cry out ‘Julian! What do you think you’re doing you fool’. After the crash, I heard the elderly lady tell me to call the police again.”
After the witness was excused, State Prosecutor Eleni Zachariadou and defence lawyers George Georgiou and George Papaioannou agreed on four facts of the case – the way in which the moped was rammed, the fact that the moped was only rammed once, how the events unfolded up to the incident and that Harrington had not tried to hit the two youths with his car outside the disco where Meek was injured.
The prosecution is set to sum up its case on December 4 when it finishes with its final witness – a British national who also allegedly saw Harrington’s car ram into the moped carrying the two pupils.
