Man Utd captain Maguire's lack of apology branded 'shocking & unsportsmanlike' by Greek prosecutor

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The Red Devils defender maintains his innocence, but questions have been raised by the prosecutor as to how local police sustained injuries

Harry Maguire's refusal to apologise after being found guilty of aggravated assault, resisting arrest, and repeated attempts of bribery has been branded “shocking” and “unsportsmanlike” by one of the prosecution's lawyers.

The Manchester United captain, who was dropped from the England squad after the verdict, has repeatedly professed his innocence after being given a 21-month suspended prison sentence after an incident on the Greek island of Mykonos.

The centre-back intends to appeal the verdict, with his club fully behind him, but prosecution lawyer Dr Ioannis Paradissis has raised questions over the injuries suffered by policemen in the altercation, adding that his clients are yet to receive an apology from Maguire's camp.

“The appeal process in Greece is a retrial. So obviously there is still time for the three defendants to say they are sorry and then I believe that the outcome might be different,” Paradissis told BBC Radio 4.

“It would be different because under Greek law you can withdraw some accusations - non-aggravated bodily harm and the verbal assaults that were shouted at the policeman.

“I don't know if my clients would accept that but they told me they are still waiting for an apology and they haven't heard any and this is what I find quite shocking and quite unsportsmanlike, because fair play means when I've done something wrong, I apologise.”

He added: “I'm representing some policemen that have been hit, they have injuries and the three defendants say they are not guilty but on the other side they don't explain how these injuries were made.

“We don't have the same definition of what a victim is then because how can you be a victim and the policeman that have been assaulted, hit, that were just doing their job, they went home with injuries - how can they not be a victim?”

The fracas is reported to have been a result of Maguire's sister, Daisy, being assaulted in some way, with some reports claiming his sibling was stabbed in the arm while others claim she fainted after being injected with an unknown substance.

Paradissis, however, has said that any such claims are irrelevant to how Maguire and his entourage treated the authorities, and that his sister made no mention of being attacked in any way when being interviewed by police.

“Obviously that [Maguire's sister being injected] is irrelevant concerning the assault committed against the police officers,” he said.

“And in any case what is strange about this case about the sister is that the sister was interviewed by police and she said nothing about that to the police. This is a new line of defence that we heard recently.”

2020-08-26 18:00:05

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