Jimmy Guerin claims in defamation case against Gemma O’Doherty that she implied he was a paedophile

Jimmy Guerin, a brother of murdered journalist Veronica Guerin claims in a High Court action that Gemma O’Doherty defamed him in social media posts and a website video which, he claims, implied he was a convicted paedophile.

Mr Guerin is suing Ms O’Doherty, a former journalist with the Irish Independent, over the postings on Twitter (now known as X), Facebook and her own internet video broadcast portal, Gemma.TV, on July 11th and 12th, 2019.

The Twitter and Facebook posts stated that a “paedophile brother of Veronica Guerin, murdered with the involvement of garda” had been found guilty of possession of hundreds of child sexual abuse images.

The hour-long broadcast, in which Ms O’Doherty speaks about several issues including that the mainstream media covers up and protects paedophilia, recounted “how the brother of Veronica Guerin” was found with large quantities of child sexual abuse images.

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However, it was Mr Guerin’s brother, Martin (68), who pleaded guilty in 2019 to possession of child pornography and later received a suspended prison sentence.

Jimmy Guerin, who is also an independent Fingal County Councillor and a businessman, says the words published and broadcast by Ms O’Doherty were understood to refer to him and meant he was a paedophile.

The material was “cynically and deliberately calculated not to identify the plaintiff’s brother” and therefore identify him as the person who had come before the courts, he claims.

Ms O’Doherty refused to apologise or to remove the posts and broadcasts when asked to do so by Mr Guerin’s solicitors, Flynn O’Driscoll, who then issued defamation proceedings.

In her defence, Ms O’Doherty admits publication but says her words were clearly intended and understood to refer to Martin.

She claims it is “ludicrous, bizarre and nonsensical and profoundly dishonest” to claim she was referring to Jimmy when she, “like most of the country”, knew she was referring to Martin.

Opening Mr Guerin’s case, Ronan Lupton, with Shane English, said their side pleads that the references were defamatory of Jimmy and could be seen as such in the context of a Facebook comment asking if this was “the same man who was up on his high horse during Gemma’s Presidential campaign, standing up for the establishment”.

The publications were false and defamatory in circumstances including that Jimmy Guerin has the highest profile with regards to his late sister., he said.

Feargal Kavanagh, for Ms O’Doherty, said his client will say there was absolutely no intention to refer to Jimmy and that it was widely known, and covered in the national newspapers, that it was his brother who had been found with child pornography. Presumably, anyone who knew Jimmy would know it was not him, he said.

Mr Guerin was relying on a thread to say she had been referring to him. Counsel said it was their case that the thread was so thin as to be invisible or non-existent.

The trial continues on Wednesday before a jury and Mr Justice Tony O’Connor.