British banker jailed after murdering teenager with broken bottle in Portugal brawl

A British banker has been jailed for 15 years after murdering a teenager with a broken bottle in a Portugal brawl.

Daniel Dunbar killed 19-year-old Daniel Galhanas by plunging a broken bottle into his neck while out in Lisbon's well-known Bairro Alto district in October 2023.

The young victim, who worked as a police mechanic, collapsed and bled out from catastrophic wounds to his carotid artery and jugular vein, dying shortly afterwards.

The bereaved family have condemned the prison term as far too lenient and are pursuing a court appeal to have it extended towards the maximum possible sentence of 25 years.

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Dunbar, an employee in the Investor Management Department at the Royal Bank of Canada, had been holidaying with friends when violence broke out in the neighbourhood that evening.

His group had intervened after witnessing a gang of local men assaulting another person, sparking a confrontation between the two sides.

Mr Galhanas was not among the group involved in the altercation, but Dunbar maintained he believed the teenager had been part of the attack on his companions and claimed he had not realised he was holding a bottle when he struck him.

The presiding judge rejected his self-defence argument, ruling that he "acted insensitively with a clear and reckless indifference to his victim's life".

After the attack, Dunbar and his friends fled the scene and he returned to Britain, where he was subsequently arrested in 2024 and extradited to face trial in Portugal.

The trial commenced in March at Lisbon's specialised Central Criminal Court, with a panel of three judges delivering their verdict in a 57-page written ruling made public on Friday.

Lead judge Armandina Silva Lopes found that Dunbar had displayed "no hesitation" in striking his victim with a shattered bottle concealed in his hand.

She said: "After delivering a violent blow to his neck and seeing the person he had injured was losing a lot of blood, he did nothing to help him and instead fled the scene. His actions were not carried out in self-defence."

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The court additionally ordered Dunbar to pay £200,000 in compensation to the Galhanas family.

Addressing the judges, Dunbar said: "I should have gone to the police instead of leaving the country but I was immature, I didn't trust the police and I was afraid of being imprisoned."

The family of Daniel Galhanas have launched an online petition demanding justice, describing him as "an honest, responsible young man and a friend to everyone, who always acted in the name of peace".

"Now there is a whole family torn apart, trying to survive an immeasurable grief," the petition stated.

Their lawyer, Joao Biscaia, made clear the family intend to challenge the sentence through the courts.

He said: "We consider the sentence imposed far too lenient given the seriousness of the facts.

"The sentence is disproportionate and there is a firm intention to appeal."

Under Portuguese law, the maximum prison term for murder stands at 25 years, a decade longer than the sentence handed down.

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