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Muslim bus driver accepts damages from The Sun

A Muslim bus driver has accepted �30,000 in damages from The Sun newspaper over a claim he ordered passengers off his vehicle so that he could pray.

The story, which was printed in an edition last March, caused London bus driver Arunas Raulynaitis considerable distress and embarrassment, his solicitor, Stephen Loughrey, told Mr Justice Eady at the high court in London.

Loughrey said the newspaper now accepted that the allegations were entirely false and that Raulynaitis did not order any passengers off, there was no rucksack and no one refused to reboard because they feared he was a fanatic.

“The article suggested that Raulynaitis was so arrogant, unprofessional and contemptuous of the passengers within his care whom he is paid to serve, that he ordered them off his bus so that he could pray,” he added.

“The article went on to allege that the passengers later refused to reboard the bus because they spotted a rucksack and feared he may be a fanatic and therefore, it is to be inferred, a terrorist,” Loughrey told the court.

“The article went on to allege that the passengers later refused to reboard the bus because they spotted a rucksack and feared he may be a fanatic and therefore, it is to be inferred, a terrorist,” Loughrey told the court.

“While it is the case that Raulynaitis did pray on the bus, he did so during his statutory rest break, as he is of course entitled to do. Not a single passenger was inconvenienced in any way. It transpires that an individual who noticed Raulynaitis at prayer chose to film this act on a mobile phone and sent the video to The Sun, which then reproduced stills from it alongside the article, as well as the footage itself on The Sun’s website.”

Loughrey said the article not only created an utterly false impression of Raulynaitis’s attitude toward his passengers, but also wrongly cast serious aspersions on his religious faith.

He added that News Group Newspapers, the News International subsidiary that publishes The Sun, had already published an apology and agreed to pay substantial damages plus costs.

The newspaper’s solicitor, Patrick Callaghan, apologised for the publication of the false allegations.