A WELL known expat lawyer has been hospitalised after police and bouncers attacked him on a night out in Portugal.
The solicitor, based between Marbella and Alicante, needed treatment after the early hours beating in Lagos.
The boss of the well established legal firm was set upon in the early hours after he was violently ejected from a bar, deciding then to file a complaint to local police.
The Law Society member, who grew up on the Costa del Sol, told the Olive Press he was ‘completely shocked’ to be beaten up for ‘absolutely no reason’.
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The father-of-two had been having a ‘quiet g&t’ with an Irish guy, who was also on holiday.
“One minute I was at the bar chatting with this lovely guy, Matt, and the next I was picked up and ejected from the place for no reason,” he told this paper, insisting on anonymity for legal reasons.
“It was very aggressive and without warning and I ended up on the floor.”
But it was then that things took an ever darker turn.
Getting up he could see a group of four policemen standing nearby in the square.
He went straight over and told them what had happened at the bar, called Bon Vivant, and he wanted to make an official statement.
“I said: ‘I’m a lawyer and it was not acceptable behaviour from the bar staff.
“But they just said ‘go away, go home’ and then suddenly this one guy pushed me away violently, in fact pushed me over, before taking me down a side street.
“It was pretty brutal and I was knocked on the head and fell over. It was really shocking and I thought I was not going to get out of it.”
Somehow though he managed to get away and he carefully circled back to the square a short while later to get photos of the doormen and the police.
After doing this on his phone, he decided it was time to go back to the hotel he was staying at with his two adult children.
“I decided to take this longer circuitous route home, via the central square, Jardin de la Constitucion, and it was there when I was suddenly attacked again.”
He continued: “These two people literally bounded up from behind and jumped on me.
“They put me in a headlock and started strangling me. They clearly wanted to put me to sleep.”
Somehow he managed to fight them off and believes he nearly passed out and was ‘very dazed’.
“I’ve never been beaten up so badly and it definitely wasn’t a mugging, as I still had my wallet, watch and phone with me afterwards.”
He continued: “I’m sure it was the police or bouncers who did it and I have no doubt they were in collusion.”
Luckily for him a Good Samaritan picked him up and offered to take him to the local health centre, where he was treated for cuts, bruises and a possible broken arm.
So worried was he of the ramifications he sent a series of over two dozen messages to the Olive Press ‘for security’ as he made his way to hospital.
As well as sending photos of his cut and bruised face, he sent a series of dramatic voice notes.
In one, he says simply: “I am really frightened. I really don’t know what happened or why they did this. I just need this recorded by the media.”
The lawyer, who worked for a leading UK law firm for years, has now filed an official complaint on the Algarve.
After going to an official judicial doctor, he filed the denuncia at the Policia Judiciary (PJ) headquarters in nearby Portimao.
It is now being handled by the Lagos Public Prosecutors office, we have established.
Alarmingly the Olive Press was able to find claims of at least three other violent incidents at the Bon Vivant over the last month alone.
At least two punters claim to have been attacked with ‘pepper spray’ by bouncers, while a woman, Ines Paredes, claims she was recently ‘kicked out by the neck’.
“He almost hit me,” she added in the post on Google last month.
Perhaps more sinisterly in a town, where police have an extremely chequered reputation, there are claims of a girl being ‘undressed’ by a staff member.
“Let’s be clear,” Maria Rita wrote on Google. “This was a man over 40 who pulled at a young woman’s dress for more than 40 seconds.
“She was undressed in front of the entire floor. It was a shocking situation and when I confronted him he didn’t deny what had happened. Instead, he said: ‘She was asking for it.’
“I immediately reported the incident to the security and manager…But they dismissed the incident as nothing more than a ‘joke in poor taste’”.
She continued: “Minutes later the aggressor was seen outside casually chatting with the same security staff we had reported the incident to.”
All the incidents, including this, were rebuffed by the club’s ‘bar manager’ Marco Monteiro on Google.
In particular he claimed Rita’s claims were ‘distorted’ and there was ‘no basis’ in what she wrote.
However, a local expat restaurant owner, who knows the town well, told the Olive Press he had heard of ‘a few unprovoked incidents’ similar to this.
“But it is not anyone I know so it would be best to go to the police and see what they say.”
It is unclear what will happen next but he is clear about one thing.
“The job of the police is to protect the public,” he said, now back home in Marbella.
“It is really important for the courts to properly deal with incidents like this and particularly Bon Vivant, having read all the other negative reports.
“I fear if they don’t, there could be much worse cases over the next few months.”
When the Olive Press visited the club, a barman insisted he couldn’t ‘recall any incidents like that’.
He referred us to the owner who has so far failed to reply.
When the Olive Press visited the club, a barman insisted he couldn’t ‘recall any incidents like that’. Manager Marco didn’t get back by phone or whats app messages.
A police source confirmed the incident to the Olive Press and said the ‘case is being dealt with by the Lagos prosecutors’.
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