{"id":560152,"date":"2026-06-29T16:19:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/560152\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T16:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:19:13","slug":"girl-12-falsely-suspected-of-stealing-eyelashes-from-penneys-awarded-e17500-in-compensation-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/560152\/","title":{"rendered":"Girl (12) falsely suspected of stealing eyelashes from Penneys awarded \u20ac17,500 in compensation \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Galway<\/a> girl wrongly suspected of stealing eyelashes from Penneys<\/a> while on a trip to Dublin<\/a> is to receive \u20ac17,500 compensation for defamation of character.<\/p>\n

Judge Gerard Meehan, in the Circuit Civil Court<\/a>, approved the settlement offer from Primark, which trades as Penneys, and security firm Bidvest Noonan (ROI), Hilton House, Swords, Co Dublin.<\/p>\n

Barrister Matthew Jolley, who appeared with Mac Sweeney Solicitors, Eyre Square, Galway, told the court he was applying to have the offer ruled on behalf of Galway-based colleague John Hogan who had dealt with the case.<\/p>\n

Jolley said Noreena Ward (15), then aged 12, had gone into Penneys apartment store on O\u2019Connell Street, Dublin, with her sister in September 2022 intending to purchase eyelashes.<\/p>\n

Ann Marie Ward, Noreena\u2019s mother, of Castle Park, Ballybane, Galway city, told the court in written evidence that her daughters had selected eyelashes and had joined a long queue for the checkout.<\/p>\n

She said that because of the length of the queue her daughters had decided not to proceed with the purchase and had left the eyelashes on an adjacent counter before walking outside.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth had left the store and while on the public footpath a security woman aggressively approached my daughters and constantly kept shouting about the eyelashes,\u201d Noreena\u2019s mother said.<\/p>\n

She said the security woman had then proceeded to physically touch Noreena by tapping her clothing, patting her coat and putting her hands into Noreena\u2019s pockets and pulling down the zip.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to the store and spoke with the relevant personnel who immediately accepted responsibility and proffered an unconditional apology,\u201d Noreena\u2019s mum said.<\/p>\n

Ward said she had obtained a written opinion from her barrister, Hogan, that Primark had offered Norreena a \u20ac17,500 settlement which he had recommended she accept and she was happy to do that.<\/p>\n

Approving the settlement, the judge said that what had happened at the time was wrong but had been followed by an almost immediate apology which had mitigated the damage caused.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Galway girl wrongly suspected of stealing eyelashes from Penneys while on a trip to Dublin is to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,24443,52,18,1878,19,17,55204],"class_list":["post-560152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-circuit-court","tag-dublin","tag-eire","tag-galway","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-penneys"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116834308616450442","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}