A statement in January last to the judge hearing Kitty Holland’s defamation case against John Waters, that he would be calling up to 13 defence witnesses, was described in court today as a blatant attempt to bully her.
Barrister Shane English, who appears with Andrew Walker SC for Holland, told Judge John O’Connor in the Circuit Civil Court hearing that he knew this at the time and that there was no reality to it.
“On January 24th, I stood in this courtroom and was handed a list of 13 witnesses which was nonsense,” Mr English said. “There was no chance anybody was going to call 13 witnesses….and it was a most blatant attempt to try and bully the plaintiff.”
Irish Times reporter Holland, of Ranelagh, Dublin, is suing Mr Waters for €75,000 damages for defamation of character arising from a speech he made to a Renua political conference in 2017 in which he referred to “the journalist who started the lie” in relation to the untimely death of Savita Halappanavar in University Hospital Galway in 2012.
Ms Holland exclusively broke the story in The Irish Times under the headline "Woman ‘denied termination’ dies in hospital", a story that went around the world and won her multiple awards.
Mr Waters, a former Irish Times journalist, of Sandycove, Dublin, denies having defamed her and told Judge O’Connor he was entitled to what he described was and remains his honestly held opinion delivered in a keynote address around the Eighth Amendment referendum.
Feargal Cavanagh SC, who appeared with Bray, Co Wicklow, solicitor Brendan Maloney for Mr Waters, told the court in a final submission, that Ms Holland, under the Civil Liability Act could have issued proceedings against Renua, who had put a recording of the speech up on Facebook, as a concurrent wrongdoer but had come to court against one defendant,
He said Ms Holland knew that Mr Waters had not known his address was being recorded or that it would be posted on line and holding him vicariously liable for what Renua had done would be unjust. Once he had known about the Facebook publication he had taken steps to have it taken down.
“It would be manifestly inequitable and unfair to hit him with damages,” he told Judge O’Connor. He said that in the event of the court finding against Mr Waters it would have to consider if a journalist who had won awards and written a book about the Savita Halappanavar case had suffered any damage.
Mr English, in his submission, said damage was “presumed” under the Defamation Act and the fact that Ms Holland had not been fired from the Irish Times was not a matter for consideration.
Judge O’Connor is to give a written judgement in early July.
