A JUDGE yesterday complimented Dunnes Stores for standing its ground against what he held to be a bogus defamation of character claim.
"If every other individual defendant were to do the same I think the world would be a better place," Judge James Carroll told Mr Michael O'Higgins, counsel for the company, in Dublin Circuit Civil Court.
Dismissing a £30,000 claim by Mr James Brady, unemployed, of Champions Avenue, Waterford Street, Dublin, Judge Carroll said if he were a criminal judge trying a case against Mr Brady he would have no difficulty in concluding he had stolen goods from the store.
Mr Brady claimed he had been arrested and wrongfully imprisoned by Dunnes in its Ilac Centre shop in March 1994, as he bought two pairs of jeans and two World Cup tops for his twin boys.
Outlining the defence before the two day hearing, Mr O'Higgins said Dunnes would present evidence to show that Mr Brady had paid for two pairs of jeans and two tops in the store and passed them to an accomplice. He later returned with the receipt and Dunnes bag and two other pairs of jeans and tops he picked off a shelf in an attempt to exchange them.
Judge Carroll said he had found the evidence of Dunnes Stores witnesses to be the more credible and held that Mr Brady had "without a shadow of doubt" stolen the goods. If he were a criminal judge he would have convicted Mr Brady of the offence of stealing.
He said Dunnes, which had pleaded justification in detaining Mr Brady, had lawfully arrested him for theft through an unlawful exchange of goods.