A couple who claimed they had been featured on a radio advertisement have settled their damages claim for defamation of character against Irish Life and Permanent.
Declan and Jean Pendred, a married couple who live at Oakview Drive, Clonsilla, Dublin, were spoken to by friends who heard their address included in an advertisement for a Permanent TSB remortgaging loan.
They claimed the advertisement falsely indicated they had taken out a second mortgage on their home with Permanent TSB and had created a misleading impression that their financial status was not secure.
Public pleadings documents showed the radio ad started with the sound effects of a big wedding at the speeches stage, with the clinking of glasses. A highly emotional bride had sobbed her way through a speech in which she said this was the happiest day of her life. She added there was one who could not be with them that day, one who had made her wedding possible and paid for the whole thing, before stating "she's 17 Oakview Drive".
An announcer had then thanked OnePlan, the mortgage account from Permanent TSB, adding, "you can release your home's hidden value to pay for life's bigger days. You just write a cheque, wherever, whenever." The bride then raises a toast to absent friends, and the announcer says: "Think what your home can do for you with OnePlan, the first ever mortgage with a chequebook from Permanent TSB - the bank you can get on with."
The Civil Bill stated a number of the radio advertisements had been carried towards the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003 referring to the Pendreds' property and indicating they had taken out another mortgage on their property. They had been heard by friends and acquaintances of the Pendreds who indicated they had not been aware the Pendreds were taking out another mortgage on their home.
The Pendreds claimed the advertisements were false, malicious and defamatory, and had the effect of damaging their good name and exposing them to odium, ridicule, contempt and embarrassment.
"The advertisement created a misleading impression that the plaintiffs' financial status was not secure," the Civil Bill stated.
Conor Kearney, counsel for the Pendreds, told Judge Alison Lindsay in the Dublin Circuit Civil Court yesterday the case had been settled and could be struck out. The amount of the settlement was not disclosed.