News / Fined for using ‘N’ word
AN OFFSHORE worker was fined £400 after he was found guilty of calling another man a ‘n*****’ during a confrontation outside a Lerwick taxi office in the early hours of 21 October.
Giving evidence at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Thursday morning, Keith Feeney was adamant that such a word was not part of his vocabulary.
But finding the 40 year old guilty of acting in a racially aggravated manner, Sheriff Philip Mann said he preferred the evidence given by two Crown witnesses during an earlier hearing.
“Both said you said ‘n*****’, and you repeated it. That rules out the possibility that anything was misheard,” the sheriff told Feeney, of 4 Mansefield Court, Kelso.
Feeney had been out with work mates in a number of Lerwick pubs that night after the vessel he was working on had come into Lerwick for shelter.
While on their way back to their boat, he and one of his colleagues encountered three other men on Lerwick’s North Road.
An exchange of words quickly developed into a fight, during which Feeney sustained some injuries and briefly lost conscience.
While in the witness stand on Thursday he said the moment the ‘N-word’ had been mentioned the police’s attention was all on him and his colleague.
“I continuously asked police about the assault and showed them my injuries – but it fell on deaf ears,” he said, adding that the other party had used the “race-card” to divert attention.
But procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie challenged Feeney saying he had been more drunk than he was prepared to admit and asked him why he did not make a complaint if police had failed to take up his side of the story.
Feeney said he had not been aware he could complain to police.
The fiscal also questioned why Feeney had not called his workmate as a crucial defence witness to back up his story.
The court heard the father of two had lost his job as a direct consequence of his court appearance and had subsequently suffered some financial hardship.
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