On the 7th December 2010 Mr Justice Gillen delivered the long awaited judgment in respect of Bridget O’Rawe v William Trimble Limited, one of the few Libel cases to go to trial in Northern Ireland in recent times. This judgment provides detailed analysis of the law relating to libel and defamation.
Facts
The case related to articles published by the Impartial Reporter, a newspaper based mainly in Fermanagh and Tyrone. The articles touched on the circumstances surrounding the death of a 17 month old baby, Lucy Crawford, on the 14th April 2000 at the Erne Hospital. The death of Lucy Crawford was caused by Hyponatraemia, which is essentially a condition whereby there is not enough salt in the blood. The Plaintiff was an employee of the Sperrin and Lakeland Trust, the trust who managed the Erne Hospital.
The articles complained of allegedly included the following allegations:
The Defendant denied the alleged defamatory meanings of the articles and maintained that insofar as the meanings meant that there were grounds for investigating her role in the death of Lucy Crawford, the allegations were true in substance. The Defendant further relied on the defence of qualified privilege, in that the publication of the articles was a matter of public interest.
Meanings
In dealing with the case, Judge Gillen first looked at idea of meanings in the context of defamation. He specified that a statement is defamatory is it tends to harm the reputation of another so as to lower her in the estimation of the community or to deter third parties from associating or dealing with her. It is the burden of the Plaintiff to prove that the words are defamatory. However, once proven, the onus then shifts to the defence to show that the statements were in fact true or that qualified privilege applies. The standard to be applied when assessing the meaning is the standard of right thinking persons generally, and it is to be assessed broadly by the trial judge. Effectively, the task of the judge is to ascertain the broad impression made on the hypothetical reader by the articles taken as a whole.
In finding the statements defamatory, Judge Gillen found that there was no doubt that, in particular, the articles had alleged that the Plaintiff was knowingly part of a cover up by the trust, that she had attempted to ‘sweet talk’ the senior paediatrician in relation to the cause of death, and that she had mislead Lucy Crawford’s family as to the cause of her death.
Qualified Privilege/Reynolds defence
In light of the finding that the words were defamatory, the Defendant did not seek to justify their use of the words, but rather sought to rely on the ‘Reynolds’ defence of qualified privilege. This effectively means that it was in the public interest for the allegedly defamatory material to be published. In making such a defence, it is not relevant that the statements are true or false. Even if an allegation is untrue, it will be covered by the Reynolds defence if it contributes in a meaningful way to the public interest element of the story.
Judge Gillen in this case found that the story was in fact in public interest. In his view, it was appropriate investigative journalism to look into the role played by the Plaintiff in the unfolding of this tragic story. After finding that it was in the public interest, Judge Gillen then moved on to consider the second element of the Reynolds defence: was the story published in accordance with the tenets of responsible journalism?
In this regard, the Defendant’s reliance on the Qualified Privilege defence failed. In failing to invite comment from the Plaintiff or to even ascertain the general idea of her defence by contacting her, whether personally or via the Trust, the Impartial Reporter was held to have failed to conform to the standards of responsible journalism.
Damages
Taking into account the conduct of the Plaintiff, the standing and reputation of the Plaintiff, the nature of the libel and the mode of publication, the absence of an apology and the conduct of the Defendant from the moment the libel was published up to the trial, the Judge awarded £44,000 in damages to the Plaintiff.