New Love/Hate Star Was Wrongly Suspected of 2008 Murder

Paudge Behan, son of renowned poet Brendan Behan’s widow,  is said to have landed a role in the new series of Love/Hate. The actor is due to play a drug dealer based in Spain on the hit drama show.  The 49-year-old actor, who starred as Brian Meehan in Veronica Guerin, (2003) was also part of a murder investigation in Italy back in 2008. The Irish star was outraged when he was wrongly suspected of murder by Italian police whereby a 72-year-old woman, Silvana Abate, was stabbed 13 times by an attacker. Behan was suspected of the crime as he presented at the local hospital within days of the murder, looking for treatment for a knife wound to his leg. Surrounded by police and immediately brought to the station, the actor was left without an interpreter for a long period of time in the police station, forcing more frustration as a result of the language barrier. He was eventually found innocent by Italian police after a 15-hour interrogation, which included the police telling him that a judge was on the way to “try me for murder”. He was entirely cleared when the DNA of an Italian man was found under the victim’s fingernails. An outraged and upset Behan told RTE in 2008: “The way these guys were going on, I was guilty until proven innocent.” "Are they really that stupid that they think that someone is going to murder someone and then go into a hospital with a knife wound?" he added. Paudge’s mother, Beatrice ffrench-Salkeld was married to Brendan Behan for several years. Paudge, who played Brian Meehan, the only man convicted of the murder of Veronica Guerin, is set to play a drug dealer based in Spain in the upcoming series of hit drama, Love/Hate.