GNR agent Hugo Ernano – who mistakenly shot a child hiding in the backseat of a runaway car – has just suffered another major blow in the fight to clear his name.
IGAI – the force’s internal governing body – has suspended him for 240 days on vastly reduced pay.
The effective eight-month suspension will put the father-of-one in serious financial hardship as his salary is to be reduced by two-thirds – and he is understood to be on one of the GNR’s lowest pay levels.
Meantime, the Supreme Court judgement upholding Ernano’s suspended prison sentence and the €50,000 in damages he has to pay the child’s parents is maintained.
Hugo Ernano’s defence is that he was trying to stop a criminal from getting away when he shot at the car in Loures in 2008.
The father of the dead child has a police record and is reportedly in jail again.
Ernano’s hope now lies in the appeal he has to the Constitutional Court.
IGAI’s condemnation comes as a disciplinary response to the Loures shooting, explain reports.
