A judge is to decide whether to grant food critic Helen Lucy Burke disclosure of documents which she says she believes will support her claims Senator David Norris had an “ambivalent” attitude towards underage sex and incest.
Michael McDowell SC, for Mr Norris, said yesterday the claims being made in the application were “far-fetched” and “outrageous”. President of the High Court Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns will rule on the application at a later date.
Mr Norris, who came fifth out of seven candidates in the 2011 presidential election, is suing Ms Burke and RTÉ Commercial Enterprises alleging libel over views she aired on a Liveline programme before the election. The broadcast, on May 30th, 2011, related to a January 2002 conversation between Mr Norris and Ms Burke for an article she later wrote for Magill magazine.
Mr Norris is also suing over a subsequent Liveline programme, broadcast six days before the election, that discussed a recording of the 2002 conversation, which was also broadcast.
Mr Norris claims his reputation was damaged by the broadcasts and alleges the words used in them meant, among other things, that he held evil beliefs and was unfit to hold public office.
He says views were falsely attributed to him in the May 2011 broadcast which he never held or expressed. The quoted material was false and a deliberate distortion of what he said in his 2002 interview with Ms Burke, he alleges. The second broadcast was a deliberate attempt to sabotage his candidacy in the election, he also claims.
In her defence, Ms Burke pleads her opinions of Mr Norris were based on allegations of fact specified in the programmes and they related to a matter of public interest. She also pleads, among other defences, the words were published in good faith, were honestly held and it was fair to publish them.
She denies Mr Norris was defamed, says he never challenged the Magill article she wrote based on that interview and that she had accurately reported the tenor of that 2002 conversation.
Ms Burke says her application relates to representations made by Mr Norris in 1997 to the Israeli courts, on Seanad Éireann notepaper, urging clemency for the Senator’s former partner, Ezra Yizhak Nawi, who had been convicted in 1992 for statutory rape of a 15-year-old.