Maynooth Students’ Union President Leon Diop lost a €75,000 defamation action against Luas. Diop accused the tram service provider of “racial profiling” in the policing of trams, the Irish Times reported.
Diop claimed that two years ago he and his brother, while on the tram, were asked to show their rail passes and, after doing so, were asked to get off the tram.
According to the Irish Times, Diop said that he told security staff that being asked to show tickets after other black youths had left the tram was “slightly racial profiling”.
In court, his counsel, Peter Leonard, said that Diop believed that the security staff gesturing for him to leave the train after having shown a valid ticket made him think that he had committed some offence.
Diop shared the Irish Times article on his Facebook, with an accompanying post. In it, he said: “My brother and I were treated horribly and I couldn’t stand for that.”
He said that he brought legal action “so they would recognize what their security company had done wrong”.
“I am proud of myself for standing up for my brother and I and I would do it all again if I had to”, he said.
Dismissing the case, Judge Terence O’Sullivan described Diop as a very successful student. “This is a nice young man who was affronted and while the gesture may be defamatory on its face it is protected by qualified privilege”, he said.
However, he said he could see the rationale behind asking Diop and his brother to step off the tram in order to deal with the problem without holding up the service.
“Racial profiling is not a tort that attracts damages in law and I must dismiss the claim”, the judge said.
