Calling Irish leprechauns not racial abuse (1 Viewer)

[robitusson]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rs-teenager-racially-harassing-neighbour.html

It isn't a crime to call the Irish leprechauns: Court clears teenager of racially harassing neighbour
By JAMES TOZER
31st October 2008

Small and mischievous, they're the green-clad little people who are synonymous with the Emerald Isle.

The question a court prepared to wrestle with was whether calling your Irish neighbour a '******* leprechaun' amounts to racial abuse.

Andeliza Tucker,18, faced a trial costing thousands after the alleged remark led to police action.

However common sense prevailed on Thursday when her lawyer, Louise McCloskey - herself of Irish ancestry - successfully argued that the prosecution was 'political correctness gone mad'.

Miss Tucker was arrested after her neighbour, mother of five Eleanor Vince, who is Irish, claimed the leprechaun comment was directed at her during the latest chapter in a long running feud.

After being questioned, the teenager was charged with racially aggravated harassment, an offence which carries up to two years' imprisonment.

When the case came before a judge at Liverpool Crown Court, Miss McCloskey argued that her client should never have been prosecuted.

Crown lawyer Michael Stephenson then conceded that describing someone as a 17th century mythical being was not a straightforward racial insult.

He admitted the Irish had put a lot of effort into marketing the leprechaun as an Irish symbol before concluding with a reference to the leprechaun's penchant for hoarding treasure.

Mr Stephenson said: 'There is a small pot of gold to Miss McCloskey's rainbow. I formally offer no evidence.'

Dismissing the case, Judge Bryn Holloway told Miss Tucker that he hoped she and her neighbour in Garston, Liverpool, could in future live with a bit more tolerance of each other.

Miss Tucker had claimed that when the remark was made last June, she had simply been talking to her sister about leprechauns after seeing one featured in a film she'd been watching.

The Crown Prosecution Service said Miss Tucker had been prosecuted because she had also allegedly threatened to kick her pregnant neighbour's baby 'out of her stomach' and had previously been given a fixed penalty notice for harassment.

After the case, Miss Tucker, who is black, welcomed the decision and claimed her neighbour had made racial taunts towards her.

 

[Froog]

wouldn't find it offensive to be honest. i prefer "spud-eating micks".

 

[Froog]

or "fenian bastards"

 

[David Kronenbourg]

ah, sher give us a patayta an' a pint an' ye can call us anyting ye loike. i like bog-wog

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Paddy is an Irishman, spud-thick mick.
Breeds like a rabbit, thinks with his prick.

 

[evil bandit]

Yeah. I think the Irish are going through a major image change. I mean, the old image of Leprechauns, shamrock, Guinness, horses running through council estates, toothless simpletons, people with eyebrows on their cheeks, badly tarmacced drives in this country, men in platform shoes being arrested for bombings, lots of rocks, and Beamish. I think people are saying "yes, there's more to Ireland than this". A good slogan for the tourist board [does the bad Irish accent again] "Dere's more to Oireland dan dis."

 

[robitusson]

'political correctness gone mad'.

/\ The Daily Mail's favouritest phrase.

 

[Carlow Punks!]

Worst racial-type insult to an Irish person abroad (as said frequently by my girlfriend to wind me up):

"You British....etc."