John Gill said he had sworn two affidavits but their content had no bearing on the matter before the court. In the affidavits, he had referred to attending court with 27 witnesses on a previous occasion to find the case was not listed and he also referred to media reports of the case.
Paul O'Higgins SC, for barrister Jayne Maguire, said Mr Gill had been required to notify a number of other people about the order directing removal of the material referring to Ms Maguire and Mr Gill had told the court he intended to acquaint those people. Mr O'Higgins said he had no addresses for those people.
Mr Justice Finnegan told Mr O'Higgins he would allow him to notify the other persons of the court order by posting a message to that effect on the rateyoursolicitor and crookedlawyers sites. He returned the proceedings in relation to those people to next week.
Mr Gill said one of the other persons referred to was in court; they had been in court before and were ignored. Addressing Mr Gill, the judge said: "I don't propose sending them to prison today. That's reserved to you."
He then asked Mr Gill was there any reason he should not be jailed. This matter was not to do with Mr Gill's complaints about lawyers but related to his conduct concerning a particular person, the judge said. He told Mr Gill he had had every opportunity to put in affidavits but had put in two "nonsense" affidavits.
Mr Gill replied that he had sworn eight affidavits. "My crime is that I'm a member of a union that exposes wrongdoing."
Mr Justice Finnegan said he proposed to sentence Mr Gill to a fixed term of imprisonment but would give him time to consider his position. After a 20-minute adjournment, the court resumed and Mr Gill told the judge he wanted to take the witness stand and hear what evidence there was against him. He said he would make every effort in the world to have the material about Ms Maguire removed.
When he then said it was removed, Mr Justice Finnegan said: "I have it here now in front of me." Mr Gill said "the obscenity" was removed. The judge said the order required that all references to Ms Maguire be removed. Mr Gill said he would "make every effort today".
The judge said he would make an order committing Mr Gill to prison for four months from next Thursday unless the material was removed. At that point the incident concerning Mr Farrell arose.
Mr Justice Finnegan later said he would "much prefer" not to send Mr Gill to jail but he was being "left with no alternative".