A biker in Belgium who gained notoriety after being charged for kneeing and pinning a 5-year-old child to the ground on Christmas Day 2020 has now prevailed in a defamation claim brought against the girl’s father.
The small girl and her mother are seen in the viral video strolling along a nature route as the unidentified 63-year-old cyclist approaches from behind and appears to purposefully put out his knee, sending the toddler tumbling face-first into the snow. The family then calls the police when the rider bikes away without saying sorry.
The girl’s father, Patrick Mpasa, recorded the incident on camera, and he later posted it on social media where it quickly gained popularity.
The biker claimed he “did not immediately realise” he pushed the young girl over and that he stuck out his knee to “avoid a fall” when the case eventually went to court in February 2021, according to a report from the New York Post.
The judge in the case decided that the biker should only pay a nominal punishment of roughly $1 because he had received a barrage of negative comments on social media and had not intentionally hurt the girl, whose name was Neia.
Mpasa disputes this, claiming that he never intended to exact retribution and that he instead intended to “raise awareness” about the risks associated with similar circumstances.
“I also don’t want a witch hunt, I just want him to apologize,” he wrote in the December 2020 post, acceding to the report.
A judge in the city of Verviers will decide in April how much the cyclist would receive from his defamation claim against the family, which he ultimately filed and won.
