The Hungarian camerawoman who gained notoriety after tripping an immigrant and his child near the Hungary-Serbia border has escaped prison for her actions and been handed a three-year suspended sentence. <br /><br /> Petra Laszlo kicked and tripped migrants fleeing police near the border in September 2015. A court in Szeged sentenced her on Thursday (Jan 12) to three years’ probation for a ‘breach of the peace’. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> In practice this means that the court did not impose but rather postpones a penalty conditional on Laszlo staying out of trouble with the law for three years.<br /><br /> She testified in the court hearing by video-link, saying that she is terrified and has received death threats. She has been under police protection in an unknown location. <br /><br /> In her testimony Laszlo claims she was acting in self-defence, saying that in a frightened state she turned and saw hundreds of people running towards her and reacted instinctively to avoid being pushed over. She also described how her life had been “ruined” after a “hate campaign” was waged against her after the incident. Her lawyer built the defence on ‘legitimate self-defense’ although the judge questioned this, pointing out that there were no other people at the scene trying to defend themselves in this violent manner. <br /><br /> Prosecutors had previously said there were no grounds to charge Laszlo with a racially motivated hate crime.<br /><br /> The court accepted in mitigation the fact that Laszlo had no criminal record, has an under age child and her remorse after the act. <br /><br /> Laszlo is reportedly considering an appeal in an attempt to get the conviction overturned. <br /><br /> The September 2015 incident became a symbol of the unwelcome reception encountered by many migrants, many from conflict-ridden Syria fleeing to Europe. Laszlo was fired from her job at N1TV, a television station with nationalist sympathies, after video footage spread online appearing to show her kicking the running father and child. <br /><br /> #Badiucao, China's Banksy apparently, has done a painting of the Hungarian journo's trip, acc to indexhu pic.twitter.com/0TVmcyI1aX— Peter Murphy (MurphyPeterN) October 15, 2016<br />
