A High Court judge has dismissed a newspaper’s application to halt a libel action against it by a brother of convicted rapist Larry Murphy.
Mr Justice George Birmingham dismissed the application by the Sunday World, which is being sued by Thomas Murphy and his partner Helen Nolan over an article published shortly before the rapist's release from prison.
Larry Murphy (47) was released in August 2010 having served 10 and a half years of a 15-year sentence for the rape and attempted murder of a young woman in February 2000 in the Wicklow mountains. She had been repeatedly raped before he put a shopping bag over her head in the boot of his car, and was saved when two deer hunters came upon them.
Thomas Murphy and Ms Nolan claim the Sunday Worldstory, published on July 11th, 2010, wrongly meant they were renovating a garage in their home at Baltinglass, Co Wicklow, to accommodate Murphy upon his release, and wrongly meant they were unconcerned about the feelings of the local community and about the offences Murphy had been convicted of.