Chef beaten up in disco attack shows slight improvement

By Martin Hellicar

AN AYIA Napa chef hospitalised in a critical state following a vicious attack in the resort town earlier this month was yesterday showing a “slight improvement,” doctors said.

“There is a lot of work to do still,” a doctor at the Nicosia general’s neurosurgery ward said of Loukas Ioannou’s condition, but he added that the 28-year-old cook was now off the ventilator.

Ioannou was rushed to the hospital with a fractured skull following an attack at the Black and White disco in the early hours of August 3. He underwent emergency surgery and was then placed on the ventilator, being unable to breath unassisted.

“He is not in a coma, he can see and shows signs of understanding what is being said to him,” the hospital doctor said yesterday.

A British tourist faces trial for the attack on Ioannou before the Assizes court in Larnaca on September 20.

Gavin Kieran Gallimore, from Southgate, north London, is expected to face charges of causing grievous bodily harm to the chef.

The 30-year-old was arrested in Ayia Napa the day after the attack on Ioannou.

Police believe the incident happened after Ioannou accidentally bumped into the suspect with his shoulder in the packed disco.

Gallimore, a quantity surveyor, is then alleged to have punched the chef and slammed his head on the disco bar before the 28-year-old collapsed to the floor.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.