A VERDICT is expected in the Monica Leech libel trial later today.
Final remarks to the jury on behalf of Ms Leech and Independent Newspapers were made to the jury yesterday who will be charged by Mr Justice Eamon de Valera this morning before being sent out to consider their decision.
Ms Leech is suing Independent Newspapers (Irl) Ltd for damages over a series of articles in the Evening Heraldin 2004 which, she claims, wrongly meant she got public contracts as a PR consultant because she was having an affair with then environment minister Martin Cullen. Independent Newspapers denies libel or that the articles bore the meanings alleged.
The case has run over six days before a jury of seven women and five men. Evidence for Ms Leech finished last Wednesday when the court was told Independent Newspapers would not be putting forward any evidence.
In his summing up yesterday, Declan Doyle SC, for Ms Leech, said the Heraldwas continuing to try to defend the indefensible and to put a veneer of respectability on a "shameful, poisonous and dishonest" series of words and pictures, said Mr Doyle.
The articles were “a pile of material” published over 15 days that degraded journalism and were a gross abuse of the right of freedom of speech, he said.
Earlier, Mr Doyle told the jury it would have to consider if the articles meant Ms Leech was having an extramarital affair with Mr Cullen and that she had travelled to a UN conference in New York and failed to attend it.
This case was not about Martin Cullen or about government contracts or about “any other smokescreen” the Herald wanted to raise, he said. It was about Ms Leech, her life and “what the Herald did to her”.
Counsel also said, while photographs may be meant to tell the truth, this was not so when those photos were “doctored”, which was “a dramatic understatement” of what happened here.
Mr Doyle said the only conclusion that could be reached from certain articles and photos was that Ms Leech was having an affair. He could imagine the people involved in creating those articles and photos "having a few pints" afterwards and talking about how good a job they had done in the spirit of the Sun's "Gotcha" headline during the Falklands war.
There was also an editorial demanding an inquiry into what the paper was calling “Monicagate”, Mr Doyle said.
There was nothing more sickening than when a tabloid newspaper had “gutted somebody” and was then getting sanctimonious about it.
Counsel said this was a libel which demanded substantial damages because of the nature of the affair allegations, the large number of people who read the Herald, either through buying it or seeing headlines on the newsstands, and because the paper had made no apology.
Newspaper's counsel: articles must be read in context
For Independent Newspapers, Eoin McCullough SC urged the jury to look at the articles in context and to read them in a fair, calm and thoughtful way.
It was clear the articles did say damaging things about Ms Leech but not what she suggested about having an affair, he said.
The articles were about matters of public interest in relation to the way contracts were awarded and there had been a deliberate attempt during the trial by Ms Leech to ignore this, counsel added.
Mr McCullough urged the jury to look at all the articles. While the words like “pretty PR girl” and the use of photo-montages in the articles may be “in bad taste”, they were not unusual in mid-market newspapers and did not mean to a fair-minded person she was having an affair.
What the articles did mean was there were serious questions to be asked about “cronyism in government”, counsel said.
There was a genuine political storm at the time of these articles when opposition politicians were asking questions about Ms Leech’s appointment, Mr McCullough said.
What Ms Leech's lawyers were asking the jury to do was to ignore the context in which the articles were published and to find a meaning that they did not have. Mr McCullough also said no evidence had been called as to the exact damage done to Ms Leech's business or in relation to an allegation that she had been hit over the head in a Waterford restaurant by a woman who had read the Herald.