Three Irish men acquitted of the attempted murder of a former police officer in Australia have returned home to Ireland.
Stephen Tahaney, 31, Jack Harvey, 28, and 32-year-old Mark Dixon hugged their lawyers after a jury found them not guilty.
They had been on trial over the incident at Point Cook in Melbourne in 2019 which left Said Morgan with severe injuries after he was shot in the head.
Just hours after they were acquitted, the trio boarded a flight home from Melbourne Airport on Saturday morning.
In a post on social media, Mr Tahaney shared an image of him and his pals in the airport prior to boarding their flight.
Stephen, from Charlestown in Co Mayo, did not want to comment on the ordeal he and his pals went through.
However, he said he is “just glad to be back home in Ireland with the family”.
He captioned the photograph: “Locked, stocked and 1 smoking barrel… 2.5 years later! It’s been a rocky road but it all worked out in the end…”
Last Friday, jurors also found the trio not guilty of four other charges including recklessly and intentionally causing serious injury. They accepted the defence’s argument that Mr Tahaney did not bring a gun to the confrontation and instead had disarmed Mr Morgan.
At an earlier hearing, Julie Condon QC, who was representing Mr Tahaney, said there was no dispute her client had shot Mr Morgan with his own gun.
She added: “He did so with a lawful excuse and that lawful excuse was self-defence.”
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