The father of a five-year-old girl who was knocked over by a cyclist on a snowy path in Belgium on Christmas Day 2020, the footage of the incident subsequently going viral on social media, has won his appeal against a defamation case brought by the rider – after a court ruled that the video amounted to “freedom of expression” and “contributed to the public debate on cyclists and pedestrians”.
The incident, which took place in Baraque Michel nature reserve, in the province of Liège, sparked widespread online debate after a video posted on Facebook showed the cyclist’s left knee making contact with the girl, named Neïa, after he came around a bend on a snow-covered path.
The cyclist, who was 61 at the time of the incident, handed himself into the police after an appeal was launched and spent a night in the cells. The public prosecutor pressed charges of intentional assault and battery to a minor, which could have resulted in a year in jail.
In March 2021, the cyclist, identified only as Jacques D, was ordered to pay a symbolic €1 in damages to the child’s family. He was also handed a suspended sentence by a judge in Verviers, who agreed that the footage showed the cyclist had been riding too fast and there was insufficient space to overtake safely.
Later that year the man sued the child’s father for defamation. A lawyer for the cyclist claimed that the footage – shared on social media with a caption asking if it should be reported to the police, before it was picked up by media outlets around the world, provoking shock and anger among many who viewed it – had caused his client to feel threatened whenever he went outside.
Patrick Mpasa, the child’s father, said he had not shared the clip to seek revenge, rather to raise awareness, insisting he not “want a witch hunt, just him to apologise”.
In September 2023, the cyclist won his defamation case, with Mr Mpasa ordered to pay €4,500 (£3,911) in compensation for the value of the bike Jacques says he can no longer use.
However, on Thursday, that ruling was thrown out by a court in Liège, who argued that the cyclist could not be identified by the video, which was posted as a form of “freedom of expression”.
“In essence, the court said that posting the video was a freedom of expression and it was not a crime, so the original ruling was overturned,” Mr Mpasa’s lawyer, Jacques Englebert, told the Daily Mail.
“The court said that by uploading the clip, the father had contributed to the public debate on cyclists and pedestrians, and it was not an issue.
“The cyclist had argued that by uploading the video, he had been identified, and the initial reports said he was between forty and fifty-years-old when he was in fact well over sixty-years-old.
“Uploading the video did not identify him or his address, he says he was insulted as a result, but has not been able to provide any evidence of this.”
The cyclist has also been ordered to pay €2,040 (£1,770) in court costs.
When the defamation case was originally brought against the girl’s father in 2021, Mr Mpasa’s lawyer at the time stated: “We have the right to express ourselves. We have the right to post or have posted a video on the internet. In this case, we must check whether we have exceeded the limits of this freedom of expression.”
At an earlier hearing on 3 February 2021, the cyclist said that he had not caused the child to fall on purpose.
“When I left my home and set off, there was hardly anyone there. It was only on this portion, of about one kilometre, near the Baraque Michel, that there were a lot of pedestrians,” he said.
“I braked, I adapted my speed, and I activated my 120-decibel horn. As I passed the little girl, I felt my rear wheel slipping. To avoid the fall I rebalanced myself by doing a knee movement. I felt that I had touched the little girl but I did not immediately realise that she had fallen.”
