PR consultant Monica Leech has lost her High Court action for damages alleging she was libelled in an article in the Irish Independentabout vulgar claims made about her by a caller to RTÉ's Liveline show. She is also facing a substantial legal bill.
After deliberating for 90 minutes yesterday, a jury of six men and six women found the article of December 17th, 2004 did not mean that Ms Leech, a married woman, had had adulterous sexual relations with former transport minister Martin Cullen and had performed deeply intimate sexual favours, namely oral sex, for Mr Cullen for the sake of a well-paid and beneficial contract.
On the basis of those findings, the jury was not required to assess damages for Ms Leech.
After the jury delivered their verdict just before 6pm, Eoin McCullough SC, for Independent Newspapers, applied for the costs of the proceedings, which ran for three days. Paul O'Higgins SC, for Ms Leech, argued that Ms Leech was entitled to some costs.
After considering the submissions, Mr Justice Peter Charleton ruled that Ms Leech must pay the costs of the action but said he would limit the actual hearing costs to the costs of one day's hearing.
This was because the defence would benefit from the fact that the law on qualified privilege based on public interest was clarified during the case, he said.
He directed that Ms Leech should receive the costs of a motion brought in the case to strike out an aspect of the defence, which particular aspect - relating to a defence based on publication in public interest arguments - was not subsequently relied upon.
On the application of Mr O'Higgins, he put a stay on the costs orders in the event of an appeal.
Ms Leech said afterwards she was "obviously very disappointed" with the verdict but intended to appeal. She was unable to say anything further, she added.
Paul Dunne, group chief news editor of Independent Newspapers, said the group was delighted with the verdict. "We always thought the article was fair, that the call to Livelinewas bogus, and we never accepted the article meant what was alleged."
The decision comes weeks after Ms Leech secured €250,000 damages and an apology from RTÉ in settlement of libel proceedings against the station over the Livelineprogramme broadcast on December 16th, 2004.
The court had heard, in the absence of the jury, that Ms Leech has additional libel proceedings in being against several other publications arising from the Livelinebroadcast.
In her proceedings against Independent Newspapers, Ms Leech had alleged the Irish Independentarticle compounded the damage and distress inflicted on her in the Livelineprogramme by repeating the "scandalous" claims made by a caller, Norman, to RTÉ the previous day without specifying they were untrue.
The defence denied libel and contended the article must be read as a whole. It said the article had reported that RTÉ had cut off the caller immediately, apologised a number of times and had dissociated itself from the remarks made.
Because the newspaper company decided not to call any evidence in the case, Mr Justice Charleton earlier yesterday ruled that it was not entitled to make a defence of qualified privilege on grounds that publication of the article was in the public interest.
In a ruling earlier in the case, he had found there is such a thing as a public interest defence in defamation proceedings. Such a defence could arise where the subject matter of a publication, considered as a whole, was a matter of public interest.
He also ruled there is a professional duty on journalists to seek out information that is of public interest and to impart it responsibly. The steps taken to gather the information must be responsible and fair and a court or jury must have regard to the practical realities of news gathering.
Ms Leech (47), a self-employed communications consultant, of Otteran Place, South Parade, Waterford, was the only witness called in the case and she told the jury she was devastated when she heard the Liveline comments on her car radio.
