A cyclist who sparked outrage when he kneeled a 5-year-old girl to the ground in Belgium on Christmas Day 2020 has won a lawsuit against the girl’s father for posting viral images of the incident online, it emerged on Friday.
The 63-year-old unidentified motorcyclist, who was caught on camera cruelly throwing little Neia into the snow on a nature trail in the province of Liège, has won a libel case against her father, Patrick Mpasa, the Sun reported.
The cyclist claimed in the lawsuit that the shared images made him feel threatened by angry social media users and scared to leave his home, the outlet reported.
A judge in the city of Verviers will decide in April how much he should compensate him.
The stunning viral video shows the girl walking with her mother in a nature reserve before the cyclist comes up behind them and appears to deliberately extend his knee, hitting the girl in the head and causing her to fall face-first into the snow.
The 63-year-old cyclist filed a defamation lawsuit after the video went viral in December 2020.Breaking News
He then pedaled away and did not apologize or show remorse, according to Mpasa, who gave chase.
The furious father later posted the video on social media, asking observers if they thought he should report the incident to the police, which he eventually did.
At a court hearing on February 3, 2021, the cyclist insisted that he extended his knee to maintain balance and “avoid a fall,” adding that he “did not immediately realize” that he had knocked the girl over.
The cyclist threw the 5-year-old girl face-first into the snow.Breaking news
A judge ordered him to pay the equivalent of just over $1 in compensation in March 2021, claiming that he had no intention of harming the child and that he had already been criticized enough on social media.
Mpasa has previously claimed that he was not seeking revenge by posting the images, but simply wanted to share them to “raise awareness” about dangerous transport situations.
“I don’t want a witch hunt either, I just want him to apologize,” he said in December 2020.
The cyclist pedaled away without stopping, according to the girl’s father. Breaking news
Transportation experts, including members of the local cycling association GRACQ, said at the time that the cyclist should yield to pedestrians on the nature trail.
The date of the ruling in the defamation case was not immediately clear Friday.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn