Woman awarded €90,000 over phone-tap article about local priest
THE High Court has awarded €90,000 damages to a woman after it ruled newspaper articles about her relationship with a priest, based on tapped phone conversations, were a "deliberate, conscious and unjustified breach'' of her right to privacy.
The award is the first against a non-state entity arising from illegal phone tapping.
The behaviour of Associated Newspapers (Ireland) Ltd in publishing articles in 'Ireland on Sunday' based on unlawfully tapped phone conversations between Michelle Herrity and Father Heber McMahon was "nothing short of outrageous'' and could not be condoned in any way whatsoever, Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne said.
The judge said there was no doubt Ms Herrity's phone line was interfered with and a recording device was attached.
The court was told the conversations were tapped by a private investigator at the instigation of Mr Herrity, Ms Herrity's estranged husband.
Ms Herrity claimed her husband said they would be published, unless she agreed to sign over her interest in the family home for €20,000.
Ms Herrity sued over breach of her right to privacy and, in a reserved judgment yesterday, the judge ruled the right to freedom of expression cannot be asserted over information unlawfully obtained, even when that information is true and there may be a public interest.
Damages
A total of €90,000 damages were awarded to Ms Herrity, including €30,000 punitive damages, over the articles of November 2003.
The judge said the articles about the relationship between Ms Herrity and Fr McMahon, then a parish priest at Brackenstown, Swords, Co Dublin, were one-sided, based solely on Ms Herrity's husband's version of events on foot of transcripts of illegally tapped phone calls.
Their publication over a three-week period was designed to extract "maximum value" from the taped conversations and the articles used family photos and other material with no bearing whatsoever on the public interest.
However, the most serious aspect of the case was the use by the newspaper of material obtained from an illegal phone tap and from a husband "motivated by revenge".
While she believed some limited information about Ms Herrity could have been published in an article about Fr McMahon, the newspaper went beyond what was permissible.
It used material which had been unlawfully obtained, the judge said.
There was no genuine attempt by the newspaper to get Ms Herrity's side of the story and, if there was, that would not justify the breach of privacy. While the newspaper phoned her the day before publication asking about her relationship with Fr McMahon, it did not ask her about her friendship with another priest referred to in one article.
The judge rejected the newspaper's claims that publication was justified on grounds of its right, and the right of Liam Herrity, to freedom of expression.
Ms Justice Dunne also said she accepted Ms Herrity's evidence that the marriage broke down before the relationship began and that Ms Herrity had legitimate concerns about the a relationship between her husband and a young man with whom he now lives.
- Tim Healy
