Third Irishman Hospitalised In Sydney Assaualt

Another Irishman is in hospital with serious head injuries after being seriously assaulted during a night out in Sydney's east.

The 29-year-old Irish national has become the third Irishman in two years to be hospitalised from assaults by locals in the Coogee area.

He is understood to have underwent emergency surgery at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital this morning after he was assaulted at a hotel in Perouse Road in Randwick around 8pm on Sunday night.

He fell back and struck his head on the ground, sustaining serious head and brain injuries, police said.

A 19-year-old Randwick man was arrested around 3.45pm yesterday and charged with recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm.

The arrested man was granted conditional bail and will face Waverley Local Court on April 13.

The news comes only a day after the family of attacked Irishman David Keohane were stunned as one of the men on trial over his brutal assault in Coogee in 2008 was yesterday found not guilty of his attempted murder.

A jury yesterday afternoon acquitted 21-year-old Thomas Isaako, a decision that elicited audible gasps from Mr Keohane’s relatives who were at the trial.

Isaako had earlier pleaded guilty to robbing the Irishman in August 2008 and admitted inflicting his life-threatening injuries.

However he denied he had intended to kill him in the assault.

The court had heard Crown Prosecutor John Pickering allege that Isaako and another man known only as Kane had been drinking at the nearby Coogee Bay Hotel when they concocted a plan to “roll” someone for money – a colloquialism for mugging.

The victim, Mr Keohane, had been on a night out with friends in Sydney city when he stopped in Coogee to get a pizza on his way home when he was brutally attacked by the two men, resulting in the fracture of almost every bone in his face and inducing a long coma.

The jury’s verdict means they rejected the Crown allegation that Isaako must have known the extreme force and violence used could result in Mr Keohane’s death.

Isaako’s barrister Nathan Steel said his client never intended to kill Mr Keohane.

Isaako will now be sentenced on just one count of robbery in company, inflicting grievous bodily harm.

Judge Ron Solomon is expected to hear victim impact statements from members of Mr Keohane’s family, who flew out from Ireland for the trial.

(DW/GK)