Vodafone said yesterday "a bug" was responsible for pornographic images and messages sent to a teenage girl's mobile phone, and transmitted from that phone to others.
This happened despite the fact the phone was out of credit and the 16-year-old girl had no knowledge of these transmissions from her phone until she received numerous abusive phone calls about them.
At Killarney Circuit Court yesterday, the teenager was awarded €7,500 damages plus costs. The amount was agreed between the parties. The company apologised for the incident.
Ms Angela Daly took the civil action against the company on behalf of her daughter, Ms Christina Daly (16), Springville, Scarteen, Killarney.
The case was "highly unusual", a Vodafone spokeswoman said later. However, the hitherto unknown bug seems to have affected up to 100 customers last January, when it was identified.
The teenager had bought the ready-to-go phone. Her contract with the company was to receive text and voice messages designated for her and that only messages sent from her phone would bear her number.
However, this was not what happened last January 17th, when pornographic images and texts were both received and transmitted from her phone without her knowledge.
Her number was attached to the pornographic messages and images, indicating they had come from her, which they had not.
Ms Daly received "numerous" abusive telephone calls and calls complaining about the pornographic images sent from her number. She received calls from people she did not even know, her solicitor, Mr Pádraig J. O'Connell, said.
He said she had suffered "considerable stress, mental distress and inconvenience".
The trauma caused, as well as the defamation, formed part of the claim against Vodafone Ireland.
Vodafone accepted responsibility that it caused, allowed or permitted certain pornographic images and messages to be sent to third parties with her number attached. It said the incident had resulted from a technical error.
In court Ms Daly's barrister, Mr Henry Downing, said: "The messages were not sent by Ms Daly, and she was in no way responsible. On the day in question she didn't even have credit on her phone."
Vodafone declined to comment on the case yesterday.
In a statement, a spokeswoman said the incident occurred during a period of free MMS (picture-messaging) when there were "unprecedented and unexpectedly high levels of MMS traffic".