The president of the High Court yesterday urged the media to exercise restraint in their coverage of a tug-of-love battle between a British couple concerning their four-year-old son.
Mr Justice Morris, who had earlier presided over family law proceedings involving the boy, asked that the press in its quest for pictures respect the privacy "of these unhappy people". Under Irish law, reporters are prohibited from attending family law cases and publishing their proceedings and outcome. The identity of parties involved in such cases may not be disclosed. The boy's father was in court for yesterday's proceedings but the child, who was located in west Cork after a State-wide appeal by his father on Friday's Late Late Show, was not present, although he was legally represented.
After concluding the family law case, the judge asked to see reporters and said yesterday's proceedings stemmed from a decision to waive the in-camera rule to permit the Late Late Show broadcast its appeal.
The judge said that, while he had not seen the show, he was happy the appeal had been successful and that the mother was found by the gardai. He told reporters that although the boy was not present in court those representing his interests were.
The proceedings posed a problem between, on the one hand, the right of the public and the press as against the undoubted distress of children. He did not think it was in the child's interest that the press should have access to delve into the unhappy saga that had gone on between the plaintiff and the defendant. The public did not need to know these matters.
It was right that the media should co-operate in tracing the child, and everyone was grateful. But that was the extent to which the media should intrude into the affairs of this family, the judge added.
Orders had been made in camera in relation to what was to happen to the boy and, hopefully, the family could be restored to some form of normality.
He requested that the press should in future respect the privacy of such people and refrain from taking photographs.