Three young men, wrongly alleged to have stolen a handbag in Dublin's Hairy Lemon pub, walked from court yesterday with equal slices of an €18,000 damages award by a judge.
Mr Justice Esmond Smyth said Darren Geraghty, Damien Donnelly and Michael Squire, all employees of Grange Golf Club, Dublin, had "quite clearly" been slandered by remarks made about them by an employee of the pub.
Mr Geraghty, of White Church View, Ballyboden, told his counsel John Brennan that he and his two friends had been to a greyhound racing meeting at Shelbourne Park, Dublin, on January 21st, 2004, and had afterwards gone to the pub on Lower Stephen Street, Dublin.
While sitting at a table, they had been approached by a young woman who had asked them if they had seen a handbag and they had said no. Shortly afterwards the young woman returned with a member of the bar staff who had said: "There's the lads who took your handbag. Give it back."
Mr Squire, of Tara Hill Road, Rathfarnham, said she had said it loudly and others in the bar had overheard her.
He had gone to the toilet and while in the private cubicle the door had been kicked in by a barman who had asked him: "What are you doing here?"
Mr Donnelly, of Loreto Crescent, Rathfarnham, said he had noticed a number of people, whom he took to be staff, taking up positions around them. As they were debating whether to go or not, gardaí arrived.
Garda Zita Woods told Mr Brennan that the lady who reported her bag missing appeared to be drunk and had said it had been dangling over the back of her chair.
"The three young gentlemen co-operated fully and gave their names and addresses. There were no grounds whatsoever for suspecting the three lads had taken the bag," Garda Woods said.
Awarding each of the men €6,000 damages against the pub, Judge Smyth said: "Quite clearly they were slandered."