IRISH BILLIONAIRE FINED FOR ATTACK ON FEMALE BAILIFF

Tycoon 'physically & verbally violent' at €30m Paris home

- PETER ALLEN

BILLIONAIRE businessman Paddy McKillen has been convicted of attacking a woman bailiff in his €30million Paris apartment.

The 70-year-old tycoon, who owns a whiskey distillery in Ireland with U2 frontman Bono, was not in court in the French capital yesterday.

He was fined €10,000 for “violence against public official” Anna Cohen-Bacri, 33, and ordered to pay her a total of €1,500 in damages and costs.

Judge Fanny Huboux, sitting in the 33rd Chamber of the Paris Correctional Court, said Belfast-born Mr McKillen was “guilty as charged”.

She rejected prosecution calls for an eight-month suspended prison sentence for Mr McKillen.

In turn, defence lawyers launched an immediate appeal, saying “Mr McKillen strongly denies the accusations against him” and described them as being “based on outright lies”.

The lawyers said “a shocked and distressed” Mr McKillen was “on a plane somewhere” but would travel to Paris for any future proceedings.