A VERDICT is expected later today in a High Court action in which former Miss World Rosanna Davison claims she was defamed in a Ryanair press release which, she claims, wrongly meant she was racist, elitist and jealous.
Mr Justice Éamon de Valera sent the jury of eight men and four women home yesterday until today while he heard legal submissions in their absence.
Evidence in the case ended on Wednesday and when the jury returned to court yesterday morning, they were sent to their room while lawyers for both sides began submissions to the judge.
As those submissions continued into the afternoon, the judge called the jurors in and told them the prudent thing to do would be to excuse them until today when they will hear closing speeches from each side and the judge’s summing up and charge before being sent out to consider their verdict.
The action arises out of a press release posted on Ryanair’s website on November 11th, 2008, in response to remarks made by Miss Davison the previous day, as reported in the Irish Independent.
Miss Davison said she was asked questions by a journalist arising from the launch on November 10th, 2008, of a Ryanair charity calendar featuring female members of its cabin crew. The questions included what she thought about the absence of any Irish cabin crew from the calendar.
She said she was correctly quoted the next day as saying: “If I was [organising] it, I would have made sure that Irish women were involved because it’s an Irish charity and Irish fundraising.”
The following day, Ryanair’s press release stated Ryanair “today hit back at comments made by Irish glamour model Rosanna Davison in relation to the absence of Irish cabin crew from Ryanair’s 2009 charity calendar which ‘bordered on racism and demonstrated an elitist attitude against Ryanair’s international cabin crew’.”
Ms Davison (27), of Cornelscourt, Dublin, alleges the release defamed her in that, she alleges, it meant she was a racist, xenophobic, elitist and jealous.
Ryanair denies defamation, denies the release bore the alleged meanings and also pleads it was fair comment in response to a matter of public interest.