A jury has acquitted a Dublin man of manslaughter, two years after he punched a Nigerian taxi driver who later died.

William Keegan, 27, was found not guilty after four hours of jury deliberation in a case that Judge Desmond Hogan described as “very emotional”, the Irish Independent reported on 4 February.

Keegan told gardaí in interview that he and four others had decided to take a cab from Pearse Street to the city centre, but taxi driver Moses Ayanwole would not let all five in the same car.

Ayanwole followed him over the road after he got out of the taxi, Keegan said, and he believed it was because he wanted money even though the taxi had not moved.

“If I didn’t hit him, he would have hit me. He was not getting out of the taxi for nothing,” Keegan told gardai.
The court also heard statements from an eyewitness, fire brigade paramedic crew and former deputy state pathologist Dr Khalid Jaber.

Dr Jaber told Maurice Coffey BL, prosecuting, that the cause of death was serious, significant brain damage. This was caused by blunt force trauma to the head, which led Ayanwole to fall backwards, he said.

Ayanwole was 41 years old when he died. Originally from Nigeria, he lived with his wife and 12-year-old son in west Dublin.