Gossip columnist Ms Terry Keane told the High Court yesterday an article she wrote in the Sunday Times two years ago was not meant to convey journalist John Waters was "a bad father". She did not say Mr Waters was a bad father or attack his journalism in any way. She believed Mr Waters was a good father. "None of us are perfect parents," she said.
What she was saying in her article was that if Mr Waters held the beliefs referred to in the article, he would not be a sympathetic parent in circumstances where his daughter suffered female problems.
She thought Mr Waters was paranoid and saw insults where there were none.
When she wrote the article she, "like everybody else", was well aware of Mr Waters's custody proceedings. She disagreed he was in a position different to other fathers. There were many single fathers and her article was "absolutely not" deeply wounding and hurtful but was the reaction of a mother of children saying: "My God, I hope he has more sympathy. If not, God help the women in his life."
Denying she had brought Mr Waters's daughter Róisín into the public arena, she said Róisín was a very high-profile child because of her parentage and Mr Waters himself had mentioned her very frequently. Ms Keane denied she was being "deep down and personal".
Mr Garrett Cooney SC, for Mr Waters, suggested that what was written by Ms Keane was in keeping with the form of Sunday Independent journalism she herself had described as "malicious". "I suggest, Mr Cooney, that you are wrong," she replied.
Ms Keane, who wrote a gossip column for the Sunday Independent before moving to the Sunday Times, was being cross-examined on the fourth day of Mr Waters's libel action against the Sunday Times arising out of a piece in her column of June 18th, 2000.
Mr Waters claims the words meant he was a bad father and an unsympathetic person, in particular in relation to his daughter, Róisín, and her needs. Róisín is the six-year-old daughter of Mr Waters and singer Sinéad O'Connor.
Times Newspapers Ltd, of Victoria Street, London, denies the words bore the meanings claimed and pleads they were fair comment on a matter of public interest and true in substance and in fact.
The article was published a number of days after Mr Waters gave a speech at the Abbey Theatre prior to the opening there of the Greek tragedy Medea.
Yesterday, Ms Keane said she was told of Mr Waters's speech the next day by her good friend June Levine - a journalist and author. One passage in the article began: "According to Waters's world: 'I'm afraid I don't believe in love . . ." If Mr Waters did not believe in what she had referred to in the article he would be unsympathetic to his daughter if in the future she was having boyfriend trouble or PMT. Lots of parents were unsympathetic if their children came in late - that made them concerned parents. She did not think Mr Waters was a bad father. As a mother of four children, she thought children needed sympathy. She knew Mr Waters was "eccentric and very sensitive".
Ms Keane said she did not think she was trying to change what Mr Waters had said. She had put it into context.
She did not put in the last section of what he said because it was "part of his blind spot", she said. Because of his experience he was very damaged by what had happened and she thought he was paranoid and saw insults where there were none, she added.
Only somebody paranoid and oversensitive would have read her piece the way he did. She just believed that if Mr Waters believed what he said, it was going to be very hard on his daughter.
Asked about Mr Waters leaving the theatre without a right-of-reply from the audience, Ms Keane said people like Mr Waters did not like women to have the last word. If he had been allocated a half-hour for his speech, why did he not make the speech 25 minutes and get some reaction from the audience.
She said writing the article would have taken about 20 minutes. She didn't believe she had written it out beforehand. She had dictated it.
Evidence concluded late yesterday and the hearing was adjourned until Tuesday when counsel for both sides will address the jury. Mr Justice Kearns will then address the jury, either late on Tuesday or on Wednesday.