A 37-YEAR-OLD woman was yesterday quizzed as to why she hadn’t thought to pick up a glass and send it for fingerprint analysis when her ex-boyfriend was attacked at a Nicosia nightclub.
The woman was testifying in court regarding the grievous bodily harm her ex-boyfriend suffered during the 2006 incident. She told the court that the last thing on her mind during the commotion and panic was collecting evidence from the scene.
“Someone is bleeding and I’m supposed to think to collect the glass?” she retorted.
The defence lawyer of the 29-year-old man accused of breaking a glass on his table and then hurling it into the face of the witness’ 30-year-old ex-boyfriend said his client was standing in the dock on “a very serious charge”.
He also wanted to know if she hadn’t picked up the glass or even looked for it on the floor, had she at least thought to tell the club manager to collect the glass to check for fingerprints.
The 37-year-old gym instructor appeared in court in a pair of leggings and fitted top with a sweatshirt tied round her waist. She was unwavering in her testimony and at times appeared bemused at the defence lawyer’s line of questioning.
Finally exasperated, she said: “I saw something and am swearing to tell the truth and here you are, for three hours – or however many hours I’ve been here – trying to push me to say something else.
“I said the man broke the glass and threw it. I told you a million times.”
As her words tumbled out, her voice started to rise slightly giving the impression she was quickly starting to lose her patience with the defence lawyer’s persistent efforts to twist her testimony.
“When there’s a fight and the other [man] is bleeding, are you going to look for a glass to check for fingerprints? Is it my job? It’s not my job,” she said.
The defence lawyer refused to be put off by her response and proceeded to ask if she’d alerted anyone at the nightclub about what had happened. He then suggested that she hadn’t actually seen the incident and that she had “unfairly victimised” the defendant without knowing he was the one who allegedly threw the glass.
“I disagree,” she said.
The witness told the court she had not been inebriated on the night the incident occurred because she had been late in arriving at the nightclub where her ex-boyfriend, his brother and some friends of theirs had a booked a table.
She was also clear that a fight erupted between her party’s table and that of the defendant’s and she saw the accused pick up a glass and break it on his table, before throwing it into her ex-boyfriend’s face.
“There was blood everywhere,” she said.
Although the defence lawyer tried to tell her she had not actually witnessed the incident nor had she seen the defendant throw the glass, the witness was adamant that she had. He also tried to make much of the fact that she couldn’t remember whether the glass was tall, short and what hand the defendant had used to pick it up and throw it.
An incredulous smile crossed the woman’s lips more than once during the proceeding, almost as if to suggest the defence was talking out of his hat.
The witness made it clear that on the night in question, both her and her ex-boyfriend’s brother’s concern had been getting the victim to hospital to treat his injuries.
“We did nothing because we took him to hospital because he was bleeding profusely,” she said.