It isn't a crime to call the Irish leprechauns



British court clears teenager of racially harassing neighbour:

"Small and mischievous, they're the green-clad little people who are synonymous with the Emerald Isle. The question a court prepared to wrestle with was whether calling your Irish neighbour a '******* leprechaun' amounts to racial abuse. Andeliza Tucker,18, faced a trial costing thousands after the alleged remark led to police action. However common sense prevailed on Thursday when her lawyer, Louise McCloskey - herself of Irish ancestry - successfully argued that the prosecution was 'political correctness gone mad'.

Miss Tucker was arrested after her neighbour, mother of five Eleanor Vince, who is Irish, claimed the leprechaun comment was directed at her during the latest chapter in a long running feud. After being questioned, the teenager was charged with racially aggravated harassment, an offence which carries up to two years' imprisonment...

When the case came before a judge at Liverpool Crown Court, Miss McCloskey argued that her client should never have been prosecuted. Crown lawyer Michael Stephenson then conceded that describing someone as a 17th century mythical being was not a straightforward racial insult.

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