The mother of a teenager who died by suicide who had secured a High Court injunction restraining Gemma O'Doherty from harassing her has brought additional proceedings seeking to establish the identities of Twitter account holders alleged to have breached the order.
Edel Campbell's lawyers have asked the High Court for orders directing Twitter to disclose the identities and contact details of the operators, controllers and owners of three accounts on the social media platform.
The three accounts are '@irishlightpaper', '@cavandrugwatch' and '@michaelmg3'.
Last month the court made orders in favour of Ms Campbell, who claims she has been the subject of a campaign of harassment by Ms Doherty.
Mc Campbell claims that the harassment is linked to proceedings she has brought against Ms O'Doherty over the alleged unauthorised publication of the image of plaintiff's late son on media associated with the defendant.
She claims that Ms O'Doherty has wrongly and unlawfully used the image of plaintiff's son Diego Gilsenan in an article linking unexplained deaths to the Covid-19 vaccination.
She secured an injunction restraining Ms O'Doherty from harassing the plaintiff, or from publishing Ms Campbell's and her late son's images or any personal confidential material about them.
Ms O’Doherty is also restrained from encouraging or inciting others to intimidate the plaintiff.
The court also made orders requiring Ms O’Doherty to take down and remove any image of the plaintiff and her late son from any form of media that she owns or operates.
The Irish Light
The injunction is to remain in place pending the final outcome of Ms Campbell's action against Ms O'Doherty, trading as 'The Irish Light'.
On Monday, Ms Campbell's lawyers returned to court and told Mr Justice Brian O'Moore that three twitter accounts have published statements allegedly in breach of the injunction.
The statements on the accounts, which Ms Campbell suspects may be under the control of Ms O'Doherty, were published after the injunction was granted by the High Court.
Ms Campbell's legal team of David Kennedy SC, Paul Comiskey O'Keeffe Bl instructed by solicitor Ciaran Mulholland wrote to Twitter seeking information about the account holders' owners and controllers.
In reply Twitter said that it could not furnish such information in the absence of a court order.
As a result, Mr Kennedy told the court, his client was seeking various disclosure orders against Twitter and Ms O'Doherty in respect of the three accounts.
His client was also seeking an order from the defendant directing her to disclose whether she is the owner, operator or controller of the three accounts.
Mr Justice Brian O'Moore granted the plaintiff permission to serve short notice of the motion on Twitter and the defendant.
The matter will return before the High Court later this month.
Last May Ms Campbell launched a High Court action aimed at restraining Ms O'Doherty, trading as 'The Irish Light', from using or publishing the image of Ms Campbell's late son for any purpose without the plaintiff's consent.
Harassment
The plaintiff claims that Ms O'Doherty is a journalist and the publisher of The Irish Light, a free periodical newspaper, and the publisher/editor of the www.irishlightpaper.com website.
Following Mr Gilsenan's death in August 2021 it is claimed that Ms O'Doherty used the image of the plaintiff's son in an article which it is claimed wrongly stated that he died as a result of the administration of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Ms Campbell, from Kingscourt, Co Cavan, claims that despite making several pleas to Ms O'Doherty to cease using her son's image, the defendant has allegedly refused to do so, and has denied that the use of the image is unethical.
Ms Campbell claims that the unauthorised and repeated use of her son's image amounts to a harassment and breach of her constitutional rights, and has caused her emotional pain, suffering and harm.
Seeking the injunction, it was claimed that the defendant's conduct towards Ms Campbell in social media posts became "exponentially worse" after the action was launched.
It was also claimed that as a result of an alleged direct call for action by Ms O'Doherty anonymous attack accounts have been set up on social media targeting Ms Campbell.
It was further claimed that a lot of the material posted by the defendant in online lectures and talks about his client has adversely affected the plaintiff's health.
It is alleged that Ms O'Doherty's comments go outside the limits of what can be considered the right to freedom of speech.
Ms O'Doherty was asked to stop using the picture of Ms Campbell's son, which it is claimed was taken from RIP.ie used without consent.
However, the defendant had refused to do so.
