Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘Angel’ stayed beside shot Gaga dog walker
32-yr-old denies attacking ex at her home following dinner
LADY Gaga’s dog walker says one of her pets appeared like an “angel” after he was shot when the other two were stolen.
Ryan Fischer said yesterday: “Four days ago, while a car sped away and blood poured from my gunshot wound, an angel trotted over... lay next to me.”
He was referring to Gaga’s dog Miss Asia, who escaped the thieves that had grabbed fellow pets Koji and Gustav.
Ryan, 39, added: “I cradled Asia as best I could, thanked her for all the incredible adventures we’d been on together, apologised that I couldn’t defend her brothers, and then resolved that I would still try to save them.”
He had been walking the three French bulldogs in West Hollywood while Gaga, 34, was away filming in Italy.
The singer offered a $500,000 reward for their safe return and a woman handed
them in unharmed on Friday. The unnamed woman is not suspected of being involved in the robbery.
Police are still hunting the gunman. Ryan, who was shot once in the chest and is expected to make a full recovery, added: “A lot of healing still needs to happen, but I look forward to the future.”
He thanked Gaga for her support.
I’LL hum it if you can play it.
You know the one – about the Government clapping for the frontline workers it hailed as “brave”, as Boris Johnson did last April, and “heroic”, as he did last July.
Then knifing them in the back when it comes to either paying them properly for their service or prioritising them for the coronavirus vaccine.
Or, worse, ignoring them as Chancellor Rishi Sunak is set to do in this week’s Budget.
The police know all about the Government’s penchant for making promises with fingers crossed behind its back. In November, Daren Egan, Chairman of Sussex Police Federation, lashed out at the Government’s pay freeze as “a betrayal of all their hard work and sacrifice made policing the Covid-19 pandemic”.
Last August, Johnson described teachers as “incredible” for going beyond the call to get kids back to school.
By November that praise was all a distant memory.
Teachers and police are rapidly coming to terms with the reality that they will have to continue doing their jobs without the peace of mind of priority for the jab.
It brings to mind the faux Downing Street concern at the rising Covid death toll within the black and Asian communities – only for both demographics to be left out of the Government’s priority lists. For ministers to then lecture the very people it had passed over about the dangers of going unvaccinated – after all the death and heartbreak of last spring – is quite something.
Met Police commissioner Cressida Dick summed up the sense of deception felt by the officers continually used as PR props by Johnson and his ministers.
Dick said: “In many other countries, police officers and law enforcement colleagues are being prioritised and I want my officers to get the vaccine. I am baffled really. This is a critical service, and to keep other people safe, we need to keep the police safe.”
Thankfully, our police and teachers are motivated by a commitment to care. The last 12 months have made clear it is the politicians who do not care about them.
‘‘ Frontline workers hailed as brave and then knifed in the back
A MAN accused of raping and threatening his ex-partner said, ”Do you hate now me? Happy Valentine’s Day” afterwards, a jury heard yesterday.
Belfast Crown Court was told the alleged offending occurred last year after the complainant invited her ex round for dinner.
The 32-year-old defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has been charged with, and denies, seven offences which the Crown say he committed over February 14 and 15, 2020.
He has denied his former partner’s allegations and while he confirmed he was at her address at that time, he claimed any sexual activity between them was consensual. Opening the case against the defendant to the jury, Crown prosecutor Gavan Duffy QC said when the relationship ended due to a “number of problems”.
A five-year restraining order against the defendant was granted in January 2019, but that they kept in contact because of their two children.
Despite this restraining order, the complainant invited the defendant round to her home for a Valentine’s Day dinner. It’s the
Crown case he asked her for a hug and after she refused and told him to leave as she was tired, he asked her to go upstairs for sex so he could “leave happy”.
When she refused, he pushed her and when she took her phone out to call police, he grabbed it off her.
The defendant then went to the kitchen, returned with a knife and threatened to stab her. Mr Duffy said at this point the “terrified” woman told him if he put the knife down she would do anything he wanted.
She tried to reason with him, with Mr Duffy telling the jury: “In light of the threats to her, she went upstairs with him – not because she wanted to, not because she consented but because he had threatened her and she was frightened what he might do.”
The Crown say the defendant then sexually assaulted and raped his former partner, and told her to take what happened “to her grave”. At hearing.