The High Court has awarded €70,000 in damages to a family who claim they had to leave their home in Co Kerry because gardaí allegedly told the media that their nephew, a convicted rapist, was living with them.
Alan Gray, his wife Phyllis and their son Francis, Drumalee Road, North Circular Road, Dublin, claimed their constitutional rights to privacy were breached when gardaí leaked to the media information that a relative, James O'Donoghue, a convicted sex offender, had been living with them in their then Co Kerry home.
Mr O'Donoghue lived with them for five weeks in 1999. The family had claimed they were shunned by the local community.
The State denied the claims.