A seven-year-old girl, who was accidentally taken for a ride on a train after becoming separated from her mother, has been awarded €10,000 damages against Iarnród Éireann for fear and shock.
The mother, who was left standing on the platform after the train doors had closed prematurely, was awarded €7,500 damages for emotional and psychological trauma.
Judge Alison Lindsay heard in the Circuit Civil Court yesterday that Sarah Flynn, now aged nine, had preceded her mum and two sisters on to the Dart at Tara Street railway station in April 2005.
As Caroline Flynn, Slademore Drive, Ard Na Gréine, Dublin, struggled to board the train with her two other children and a buggy, the buggy had become caught in the closing doors.
She told her counsel, Fergal Sweeney, that she managed to extricate the buggy and had been left stranded on the platform with the remainder of her family while Sarah had been trapped on the train.
Ms Flynn told Gerard O'Herlihy, solicitor for Iarnród Éireann, that she had been reunited with her daughter at the next stop, Connolly Station, some minutes later.
Sarah had been prone to suffering panic attacks and she had feared she would have taken one on the train after having been separated from her family. She had suffered emotional and psychological trauma as a result of having been left on her own when the train moved off.
Ms Flynn told Mr O'Herlihy she had been unable to eat or sleep for a week following the incident and she had vomited off and on several times a day for seven days following the experience.
She said she had lost self confidence and had become unduly anxious about the care and protection of her children.
Mr O'Herlihy told Judge Lindsay that liability had been conceded by Iarnród Éireann.