A TEENAGE girl has been awarded €10,000 in damages against the owner of a store after she claimed she was assaulted by a security man.
Patrick Okorie, who was doing security work at the shop, told the Circuit Civil Court that Kirsty Hogan (16), a soccer player, had kicked him when he attempted to shut her and “a gang of her pals” out of the Spar shop on Cumberland Road, Dublin, 2½ years ago.
However, the girl claimed she had been kicked, and the judge accepted Ms Hogan’s version of events.
The court was told Kirsty Hogan, Railway Street, Dublin, had played under-11 soccer for Ireland and had been selected to represent Sport Against Racism Ireland in the third annual Streetfootballworld festival in Belgrade, Serbia, from May 11th to 16th.
She had been published in Roddy Doyle’s book Fighting Tuesdays, a collection of stories by fourth-year students from Larkin Community College, for which the author had written the foreword.
The court also heard that Mr Okorie had literary credentials. He was a columnist and the author of books published in his native Nigeria, the court heard.
John Nolan, for Ms Hogan, said she had been stopped by Mr Okorie while she was passing the Spar on her way to another shop. An incident had developed and she had been kicked in the jaw by Mr Okorie.
Ms Hogan, then aged 14, said Mr Okorie had stopped her outside the shop and told her she was not getting in. She had refused to give him her phone number regarding an earlier incident and had told Mr Okorie she was just passing the shop on her way to another shop.
He had then kicked her under her left jaw and chin and he said: “That will teach you not to do that again.” She said she bled heavily and had gone home to her mother, who had taken her to the Garda and then the hospital.
When told Mr Okorie would allege she had tried to kick him in the testicles, Ms Hogan said: “No. That didn’t happen.”
Judge Joseph Mathews accepted the account of the incident given by Ms Hogan.
He said that despite irreconcilable differences in the evidence, he believed that in all reasonable probability Ms Hogan had been injured by a kick from Mr Okorie.
Judge Mathews told Mr Nolan he could not accept Mr Okorie’s denial of assault and assertion that under no circumstances had he, or any part of his body, touched Ms Hogan.
“He has stood by his argument but I find no evidence to suggest he is worthy of belief,” the judge said.
Mr Nolan told the court that during Garda investigations following the October 2008 incident, Mr Okorie had signed an “adult caution” in Fitzgibbon Street Garda station.
Judge Mathews said Garda Insp Gerard Donnelly had recommended the adult caution rather than prosecution in court and he had been satisfied Mr Okorie had understood what he had signed.
Mr Okorie had maintained at all times that any contact with Ms Hogan was wholly unintentional. He claimed he had signed the caution to avoid legal hassle.
The judge said the defendant, Raymond Conboy, who traded as Spar Cumberland Road, and against whom the €10,000 damages award was made, had given a history of difficulties he had experienced at the hands of children, including Ms Hogan.
Mr Conboy said the shop had been closed down, but he now traded without difficulty in another store 400 metres away.
He and Mr Okorie in evidence described Ms Hogan as “leader” of a pack who would charge into the shop and grab sweets and even eggs, which they would throw at the shop.
While they could stop some of them, others would inevitably escape with items.