A jury in the High Court last night awarded £40,000 damages to a prison officer after they found he was libelled in an article in the Sunday Mirror relating to the triple killer, Brendan O'Donnell.
In an action against Mirror Group Newspapers, Mr Eugene Dennehy, a father of five attached to Mountjoy Prison, claimed he was libelled in a Sunday Mirror article of July 10th, 1994, headlined "Kidnapper goes berserk in prison".
The article dealt with Brendan O'Donnell's alleged behaviour in Mountjoy Prison in 1994 when he was on remand in relation to kidnapping charges. O'Donnell, a native of Co Clare, was found dead in the Central Mental Hospital earlier this year. He was serving three life sentences for the murders of Ms Imelda Riney, her toddler son, Liam, and Father Joseph Walsh in the West of Ireland in 1994.
Mr Dennehy claimed the Sunday Mirror article contained the words: "Warder Eugene Dennehy said yesterday: `He (O'Donnell) has no respect for prison staff. When I gave him a meal he just threw it against the wall."
Mr Dennehy told the court he had never spoken to the Sunday Mirror and had never served a meal to Brendan O'Donnell. He said he went "weak at the knees" when he read the article as prison officers were forbidden to talk to the press and he was aware of the implications of the article. He told the court he had been asked by his unit governor to explain the incident.