A ten-year old schoolgirl who alleged she was bullied by fellow pupils in her first year attending Scoil Nano Nagle, Clondalkin, has lost her High Court action for damages.
The issue of who will pay the substantial costs of the action will be decided at a later date.
Mr Justice Johnson yesterday dismissed the claim brought by Ms Nicola Mulvey, suing through her mother, Ms Margaret Mulvey, Ashwood Avenue, Clondalkin, against the school. He found the school witnesses' account of a number of events more reliable than the account given by Mrs Mulvey and Nicola.
The judge adjourned the case for a week to allow both sides to consider the judgment. It is expected applications regarding costs will be considered then. Afterwards, neither Ms Margaret Mulvey nor representatatives of the school would comment.
In her proceedings, Nicola claimed damages for personal injuries allegedly suffered on June 25th 1998 when it was claimed she had to be hospitalised after being assaulted and kicked by a number of fellow pupils in the school yard. It was claimed the school managers were negligent in that they failed to monitor the conduct of the pupils involved in the alleged incident.
Nicola also claimed she had been bullied since the previous October and that the school failed to act on foot of complaints by her mother.
The school denied the claims, said it was very aware of bullying and had put measures in place to counter it.
In his reserved judgment yesterday, Mr Justice Johnson said he accepted the definition of bullying as "repeated aggression, verbal, psychological or physical conducted by an individual or group against others". He agreed that isolated incidents of aggressive behaviour which should not be condoned could scarcely be described as bullying but if the behaviour was systematic and ongoing, it was bullying.
In this case, the claim of bullying was made regarding a single incident on June 25th 1998 when Nicola was alleged to have been assaulted by fellow pupils in the school.
Having considered all the evidence, he was satisfied the incident did not occur as described by Mrs Mulvey and that the injuries alleged to have been suffered by Nicola were not suffered.
Any incident which may have taken place did not result in the alleged personal injuries and was certainly not the result of any negligence or breach of duty by the school.