DAMAGES awarded to Mr De Rossa must be very large otherwise the Sunday Independent would be sniggering behind their hands, the jury was told. Mr Paul O'Higgins SC, for Mr De Rossa, said if the damages were not large, the Sunday Independent would feel this exercise was a worthwhile financial investment.
This was Mr De Rossa's opportunity to achieve vindication having waited for four years. It might be difficult for him to take another libel action to establish his reputation. Mr O'Higgins said it was extraordinary for Mr Dunphy to suggest that even if he said one was involved in prostitution and drug-dealing, it would do one nothing but good. Mr Dunphy said he did not mean to say anything bad about Mr De Rossa.
If in 1992 Mr Dunphy believed Mr De Rossa was not involved in, special activities, why did he not say he was not involved? The article was intended to mean that Mr De Rossa was a person tolerant of and prepared to reap the fruits of crime in his political party and was not fit for government.
The article said Mr De Rossa had friends in foreign countries who were anti-Semites and political friends, people who shared his approach to politics and were no better than gangsters.
The jury was being asked if the words complained of were published by the defendant without genuine belief in their truth. Mr Dunphy had referred in evidence to the consequences for him and for Mr De Rossa but the judge had said the jury's decision in relation to what the article meant should not be governed by the likely consequences for the various parties.
The Sunday Independent could have given evidence through a large number of people, specifically its editor, Mr Aengus Fanning, who had been in court for lengthy periods and could have expressed the view of the newspaper on these matters, but the only view expressed for the Sunday Independent was in the pleadings.
If the jury took the view that these were not the honestly held views of the Sunday Independent, it was entitled to approach the question of damages in a way which took account of the fact that, not only was the article defamatory of Mr De Rossa but that the Sunday Independent did not even believe what was written at the time it was written.
Mr Adrian Hardiman SC, for Mr De Rossa, had challenged Mr Fanning and Mr Dunphy to go into the witness box and stand over what they wrote. Mr Fanning did not because it would plainly expose the fact that the article was part of a campaign to achieve certain results regarding the formation of the next government.
When Mr Dunphy said he did not know what the policy of the newspaper was at that time and never read editorials, the jury was entitled to ask itself if it believed that
Since publication, the Sunday Independent had made no retraction and no apology. Four years and three months had passed and during that time Mr De Rossa had, had to endure the fact that the article had been written and nothing said about it by Independent Newspapers to take away its sting.
Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, for Independent Newspapers, in his cross-examination had subjected Mr De Rossa to a gruelling ordeal over several days. He was asked to trawl through aspects of his life long passed and through a welter of suggestion and innuendo put forward by the Sunday In dependent.