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The president of a local cycling club was filmed smashing his knee into the back of a young girl in Belgium.
The incident filmed by the girl’s dad led to a lengthy legal battle after the father shared the footage online.
It showed how the cyclist approached the five-year-old girl Neia from behind on a path during a family walk in Baraque Michel nature reserve on Christmas Day, 2020.
Neia and her mum were walking along the path when a cyclist, named only as Jacques D, appeared behind the pair.
The cyclist’s knee hit the girl, Neia, on her back while she was walking with her mum along the slushy path (Picture: Newsflash)
He can be heard sounding the horn-like bike bell as he quickly approaches them.
While the cyclist rides along the little girl, he appears to extend out his knee, which hits Neia in the back, sending her flying to the snowy ground.
Her dad, Patrick Mpasa, can be heard yelling after him as he cycles on, seemingly unbothered by the encounter.
Mr Mpasa said he managed to make the man stop, but he ‘showed no remorse and did not apologise,’ he claimed.
While the dad said he did not ‘want a witch hunt,’ he later posted the footage on social media, which sparked a long legal row.
Neia falls on her knees after the impact, while the cyclist continues on (Picture: Newsflash)
In one court hearing in February 2021, Jacques D said the incident happened because he was trying to keep his balance, Daily Mail reports.
He said: ‘When I was riding close to the girl, I felt my rear wheel sliding. To avoid a fall, I balanced myself with a movement of my knee. I felt that I might have hit the girl, but did not immediately realise she had been knocked over.’
In the end, Jacques D received a suspended sentence as the judge argued he had no intention of harming the girl, the incident was minor and he had faced heavy criticism online.
He was ordered to pay a symbolic sum of €1 (£0.87) in compensation.
The issue returned to the courts when Jacques D sued Mr Mpasa for defamation over the video clip, arguing that he was identifiable from the video.
The dad was first ordered to pay the cyclist nearly £4,000 in compensation in April 2023.
But the court of Liege overturned the decision yesterday, and ordered the cyclist to pay around £1,700 in court costs instead.
Mr Mpasa’s lawyer, Jacques Englebert, told the Daily Mail: ‘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.
‘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.’
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