Fan asked to produce ticket ‘defamed’ by security firm
Anthony Kenneally, of 27 Meadow Avenue, The Mea-dows, Hollyhill, Cork, was at the gig on July 12, 2014.
At Cork Circuit Court, he claimed a security officer from defendant company AOS Security Management approached him at an interval in the middle of the performance and asked him to come to the ‘welcome’ area, where he asked him if he had a ticket.
The security officer scanned his ticket and found it to be valid.
The accounts of what happened next diverge.
The plaintiff said the officer said to him “you must have found that ticket”, or words to that effect.
The defence denied that such a comment was made and alleged that the plaintiff began to get a bit loud and demanded the gardaí be brought into it.
Garda Donal Daly said that, shortly after this, it became less about validity of the ticket and more about Mr Kenneally’s behaviour under the Public Order Act.
The plaintiff’s barrister, Daniel Cronin, said: “There is manifest inconsistency.”
“Anyone might get exercised if they were taken out halfway through an event and taken out to an area near the security area for no reasonable reason.”
Kieran Hughes, defence barrister, said the plaintiff was not removed by the security officer.
Judge O’Donohoe said one thing certain was that the plaintiff was in possession of a valid ticket, scanned at 8.01pm, but “there is a mystery about who scanned it”.
He noted that it would be unusual for a person to be asked at an interval to show their ticket.
“What the court cannot understand was how it escalated to such an event that the guards were called,” the judge said.
Garda Daly said the plaintiff was getting agitated, almost taking up a fighting stance with a security man, saying: “These fuckers are saying I have no ticket.”
Judge O’Donohoe will give his decision on Wednesday.
