Rapper 'Gypsy General' who put nightclub reveller in a coma and went on the run 'was not gloating' in music video, court told
A rapper known as the “Gypsy General” who punched a nightclub reveller, putting him in a coma with a fractured skull, “was not gloating” when he made a music video littered with threats.
Married father-of-three Arthur McDonagh went on the run after knocking out his victim, a semi-professional rugby player in his early 20s, in Main Street nightclub in Newport.
The victim was left out cold with blood pouring from his head, and paramedics had to use a defibrillator on him before rushing him to the University Hospital North Midlands in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
He was in an induced coma for four days and could not remember anything of the incident.
McDonagh, aged 29, has avoided an immediate prison sentence for the offence, as Judge Trevor Meegan had indicated at an earlier hearing, on the basis that the punch was delivered in “pre-emptive self defence”.
Shrewsbury Crown Court was told that McDonagh ran out of the nightclub after the assault, at around 3am on November 19, 2022.
A bouncer had been speaking to the victim, who was said to be looking “annoyed”, before McDonagh went over, spoke to him for 30 seconds and then punched him.
McDonagh was eventually arrested in Hampshire in mid March 2023 after nearly four months on the run.
Around a month later, a music video for McDonagh’s song “Purple Notes” was uploaded to YouTube.
In the beginning of the video several news articles containing his mugshot are featured, including from the Shropshire Star, saying that McDonagh was wanted by police for this assault.
The song features a litany of aggressive lyrics including: “You want war with a gypsy traveller, five man’ll hop out that whip and batter ya. You what, you don’t like me? I’ll turn your mum’s yard into a crime scene.”
He adds, while flanked by young men on motocross bikes: “Pull up in the yard with a hoodie and a bar, leave a brudda on his a*** if he thinks he’s a badder man.
