A MAN in Scotland has been taken to court after using the term “leprechaun” to describe his ex-partner’s new Irish boyfriend in a threatening email.
Terry Myers, 41, from Aberdeen was fined after using the derogatory term in reference to his former girlfriend’s partner, who was born in Dublin, the Evening Express reports.
The message also saw Mr. Myers make various threats to assault the Irishman.
The woman contacted police after receiving the email and taking offence at the use of the term “leprechaun” and threats of physical violence.
According to the report, Mr. Myers accepted the charge of sending a message that was “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character in that it used offensive and derogatory language to refer to her new partner” and of also threatening his ex’s new partner with assault.
The offence carried with it a racial and domestic aggravation.
While his defence agent noted that Mr. Myers and the unnamed Irishman had some history, he acknowledges he should not have used the term "leprechaun" to describe him.
Mr. Myers was fined a total of £280 for the offence.
The incident echoes a court case from the US back in 2008 [via Daily Mail], when Irish-American woman Eleanor Vince took her neighbour to court after she called her a “f***ing leprechaun”.
18-year-old Andeliza Tucker was eventually cleared of all charges after her lawyer, Louise McCloskey - herself of Irish ancestry - successfully argued the prosecution was “political correctness gone mad”.
