Courts

Kitty Holland tells judge that John Waters’s letter was ‘quite the assault on me and The Irish Times’

100-page letter sent by Mr Waters to Ms Holland’s solicitors after she initiated defamation case

Kitty Holland, a journalist for The Irish Times, has been giving evidence at the Dublin Circuit Civil Court. Photograph: iStock

Mary Carolan
Thu Apr 25 2024 - 18:59

A 100-page letter by John Waters responding to a claim he defamed journalist Kitty Holland in an address to a Renua conference concerning the reporting of the death of Savita Halappanavar was “quite the assault on me and The Irish Times”, Ms Holland has told Dublin Circuit Civil Court.

In the letter, Mr Waters said he was not saying at the Renua conference in 2017 Ms Holland had “lied” in an article of November 14th, 2012, published in The Irish Times, which broke the story of Ms Halappanavar’s death on October 28th, 2012, seven days after her admission to a Galway hospital.

Ms Holland, social affairs correspondent with The Irish Times, was the main writer of the article, entitled “Woman ‘denied a termination’ dies in hospital”, with the subheading “Two investigations are under way into the death of a woman who was 17 weeks pregnant, at University Hospital Galway last month”.

In his letter sent to Lavelle Solicitors, for Ms Holland, after she initiated defamation proceedings, Mr Waters claimed what he was saying at the Renua conference was the article was a “deliberately partial and spun account” of Ms Halappanavar’s death used by many to promote the removal in 2018 of the 1983 anti-abortion amendment to the Constitution.

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He said he was not saying Ms Holland lied but that she was the “initiator of a process” that “at some indeterminate point along its trajectory became a lie”.

After some of the letter was read on Thursday during cross-examination of Ms Holland in her continuing defamation case before Judge John O’Connor, Feargal Kavanagh SC, for Mr Waters, put to her that was Mr Waters position and she incorrectly interpreted what he said at the Renua conference as calling her “a liar”.

Ms Holland disagreed and described the letter as “quite the assault on me and The Irish Times”.

“It’s full of factual inaccuracies, I don’t know where to start,” she said. “I don’t accept it.”

Ms Holland, of Ranelagh, Dublin, is claiming damages, including aggravated damages, arising from words spoken by Mr Waters, an unemployed journalist with an address in Sandycove, Dublin, during his address to the Renua conference in Tullamore on November 25th, 2017 and allegedly published in a video posted online. The address was delivered during the referendum campaign concerning repeal of the 1983 amendment.

In opposing repeal, Mr Waters told the conference: “There is not a single history that any doctor who is honest can produce of a mother dying because of the failure, the inability of doctors to provide her good treatment and anywhere related to abortion in any way”.

Ms Halappanavar “is the closest they have come and we know that’s a lie”, he said. “We know it’s the lie that resulted in the journalist who started the lie getting multiple awards from her colleagues.”

Ms Holland claims those words were a clear reference to her and wrongly meant, in her capacity as a journalist, she was likely to and/or did spread false stories and/or lied. Mr Waters, it is claimed, spoke the words maliciously and knew there was no basis to refer to her as a liar.

In a full defence, Mr Waters denies her claims. Without prejudice to his denials, he has made several pleas, including that he has “deep pro-life” convictions and his speech was made in good faith on a matter of a public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit.

On Thursday, Dr Peter Boylan, a retired consultant obstetrician, said in evidence he had compiled a medical report at the request of the coroner who presided over the inquest into the death of Ms Halappanavar. He found deficiencies in her medical care and also concluded, on the balance of probabilities, she would have survived had she been provided with a termination as she had requested on October 22nd or 23rd, 2012. The then law prevented termination unless there was a serious imminent risk to the life of the mother, which did not occur until the earlier hours of October 24th, he said.

In her evidence, journalist Justine McCarthy told barrister Shane English, for Ms Holland, she viewed Mr Waters speech to the Renua conference on Facebook in November 2017.

In relation to the alleged defamatory words, she said she was quite certain the person Mr Waters was referring to was Ms Holland and was “surprised” somebody would say publicly that Ms Holland, as a journalist, had lied about a story. She thought every journalist in Dublin associated Ms Holland with the story about Ms Halappanavar.

Ms McCarthy, then working with the Sunday Times, said she wrote a news story about Mr Waters’ speech, published by the Sunday Times in early December 2017 and wrote another story in November 2018 reporting that Ms Holland had initiated defamation proceedings against Mr Waters.

The case continues on Monday.

Mary Carolan

Mary Carolan

Mary Carolan is the Legal Affairs Correspondent of the Irish Times

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