… Bridget O’Rawe v William Trimble Limited … [2010] NIQB 135 … is one of the few libel cases to go to trial in recent times in Northern Ireland and the judgement is not only extremely detailed but provides long awaited clarification from the bench in relation to qualified privilege and particularisation of pleadings.
Prior restraint and temporary injunctions in defamation cases
Some orders have been made on foot of the Defamation Act, 2009 (also here) – see, for example, Lowry v Smyth (background here and here; coverage of the order here), Mellon v Associated Newspapers (coverage here), and Meegan v Associated Newspapers (coverage here) – but Watters v Independent Star [2010] IECC 1 (03 November 2010) remains the only reported judgment on provisions of the Act. In that case, the newspaper had published an article headlined Larry’s Secret Shower Buddy, purporting to expose a a “seedy”, “weird”, “bizarre” and “secretive” homosexual relationship in prison between the plaintiff Barry Watters and Larry Murphy, a notorious criminal who had been convicted of rape and attempted murder. Matthews J held that the plaintiff had a residual reputation which was damaged by the newspaper’s allegations. He therefore granted the plaintiff a declaratory order pursuant to section 28 of the 2009 Act (also here) that the article was defamatory, and he made a further order pursuant to section 33 of the 2009 Act (also here) prohibiting the newspaper from re-publishing the defamation. Nevertheless, the newspaper repeated the defamation: in an article alongside a photograph of Watters the newspaper had stated:
…We may have to apologise to this revolting pervert but will we mean it?
Could libel reform have a damaging impact on the public’s access to justice? This was one of the key questions to emerge last night from ‘Libel Reform: in the public’s interest?’, a public debate organised by