A former Miss World has been awarded £70,000 in damages after suing no-frills carrier Ryanair for defamation

A jury at the High Court in Dublin has ruled that publicity by the airline implied that model Rosanna Davison, daughter of singer Chris de Burgh, was racist, xenophobic, jealous and narrow-minded. The case centered on a press release posted on Ryanair’s website in November 2008 in response to remarks Davison, 27, made the previous day in a newspaper. Asked what she thought of the lack of any Irish women in Ryanair’s 2009 charity calendar of bikini-clad cabin crew, she said: ‘If I was (organizing) it, I would have made sure Irish women were involved because it’s an Irish charity and Irish fundraising.’ The airline’s release said that the comments by Miss Davison, who was crowned Miss World in 2003, ‘bordered on racism and demonstrated an elitist attitude against Ryanair’s international cabin crew’.