IRISH PAIR IN SYDNEY PLEAD GUILTY OVER EAR SLASH ATTACK

TWO Irishmen have pleaded guilty in Australia to a charge of grievous bodily harm for an attack in which another Irishman was stabbed and his ear severed.

Patrick Farrell and John Dunlea were arrested in Sydney for alleged roles in the attack from two years ago.

They yesterday pleaded guilty to GBH over the gang attack involving up to five Irish people.

Images showed the victim Oliver Solan, also Irish, slumped over on a floor of Sydney’s Randwick apartment complex on Young Street on August 29, 2020.

Solan, aged 30 at the time, was found half-conscious, bloodied and almost naked from the waist up.

A fourth Irishman, aged 23 at the time, was also injured and was later found near the Randwick flats.

In a statement at the time, NSW Police Force said: “Emergency services were called to the unit on Young Street at about 8.40pm on Saturday after reports of an altercation.

“Officers from Eastern Beaches Police Area Command attended and found a 30-year-old man suffering stab wounds to his head and body, with his ear partially severed.

“He was treated by paramedics and taken to St Vincent’s Hospital where he has undergone surgery.

“A second man, aged 23, was found nearby in Botany Street with an arm injury and was taken to Prince of Wales Hospital for treatment.”

A POPULAR Lidl worker said he felt like his life was over after he crashed his mountain bike during a tournament and was left paralysed from the neck down.

Lucky Barquez (23) originally from the Philippines but living in Dublin since he was four, said his first thought upon waking up in hospital was: “I’m only a night shift worker from Lidl, I am all alone.”

The semi-professional cyclist suffered a horrendous crash while competing in a mountain bike event in the Carrick mountains in Wicklow on September 4.

He said he has “no clue what happened” and only remembers competing in the race before waking up in St Vincent’s Hospital in south Dublin where he remains today.

Doctors told him he was paralysed from the neck down and could not give a prognosis yet about his recovery.

Thankfully, he has begun to slowly feel sensation in his body again since the accident and walked for the first time on Thursday.

Now his big-hearted friends in a number of Lidl stores around Dublin as well as the mountain bike community have rallied around him to support

Wounds

him in his recovery.

Speaking from his hospital bed, Lucky said he has “no plan B, only a plan A and that is to walk again for my friends who have helped me”.

He said: “I am overwhelmed by the support I have received from my friends. I can’t tell you what it means to me. When I crashed and woke up I thought I’m alone in the world, I am just a night shift worker in Lidl.

Worry

“I worried about my job in Thomas Street Lidl, my apartment, and I also worried about my bike, I asked if my bike was OK.

“I have no blood relatives in Ireland, my parents moved back to the Philippines when I did my Leaving Cert in the Larkin School on Sean McDermott Street and my older sister and brother are also there with their families.

“I have one sister who moved to Texas a month ago. I literally have no family here, so I thought I am finished, it’s over for me. Who is going to help, how will I do this?