Yesterday a jury decided unanimously that a television producer, Mr Sean McPhilemy, was libelled in a Sunday Times newspaper article which accused him of carrying out a hoax when he broadcast a programme on Channel 4 alleging a loyalist conspiracy to murder Catholics.
The Sunday Times delved into the detail of murders in Northern Ireland, including that of the solicitor Mr Pat Finucane, in an attempt to prove that a high-level murder committee did not exist. The jury held that the newspaper failed to do this.
Born in Northern Ireland, Mr McPhilemy (52) began his career on the Belfast Telegraph. In the 1970s, he moved to Britain, working for London Weekend Television, and in 1986 he formed his own company, Box Productions. The course of his life was to change in early 1991 when a researcher, Mr Ben Hamilton, suggested making a programme about allegations of collusion between the security forces in the North and loyalist paramilitaries.
Mr Hamilton went to Northern Ireland and met Mr Martin O'Hagan, a Sunday World journalist, who put him in touch with a man described as a loyalist fanatic, Mr Jim Sands.
Mr Hamilton made audio tapes of interviews with Mr Sands. In these, Mr Sands made allegations of collusion and of a committee of prominent Protestant businessmen, city councillors, security forces personnel and loyalist paramilitaries who had conspired to murder republicans and Catholics. He claimed that he had inside knowledge of the murders of Catholics, including Mr Finucane.
Mr McPhilemy met Mr Sands for the first time in London in April 1991, when he filmed an interview with him. Extracts were used in the programme, with an unidentified Mr Sands shown in shadow.
In his evidence to the libel trial Mr McPhilemy continually said he had believed Mr Sands, and still did, as he had met him again only last year.
Mr McPhilemy and Mr Hamilton also interviewed Mr Eddie Quinn, a hitch-hiker picked up by Mr Hamilton in Northern Ireland. Mr McPhilemy admitted in court that he was unhappy with the way this witness had been found.
The programme for the Channel 4 Dispatches series was broadcast on October 2nd, 1991. Two years later, in May 1993, the Sunday Times claimed in an article that the programme was a hoax and that the source had been coached and given a prepared script.
The aftermath of the programme included Box Productions and Channel 4 being fined £75,000 for refusing to reveal their sources after the RUC won a court order; Mr David Trimble criticising the programme in the House of Commons; and years of litigation.
During the trial, which began on January 25th, Mr McPhilemy described how the article had destroyed his career. He told the court he had feared that he would be shot dead after Mr Sands alleged there was a security threat against him.
In 1998 Mr McPhilemy wrote a book titled The Committee, published in the US, which gave names of people who belonged to the alleged committee. For the first time, Mr Trimble's name was brought into the allegations, with the claim that he knowingly associated with, and assisted, people responsible for murdering of his own constituents.
Mr McPhilemy later made a qualified retraction, during his cross-examination, when he said that he could not be as categoric now about this allegation.
The Sunday Times called Mr Trimble who, in the witness-box, described as "grossly offensive" the allegation made against him, saying that there was not a "single scrap or shred of truth" in it.