A High Court jury yesterday awarded £60,000 damages to a former prisoner after it found he was libelled by an article and photograph published by the Cork Examiner.
The man had claimed the article and photograph wrongly meant he was a sex offender when he was serving a sentence for assault on a garda.
Mr Finbarr Hill (27), a sheet metal worker, of Springfield, Clonmel, Co Tipperary, sued the paper after it published on October 25th, 1995, a photograph showing him in his cell and beside it an article headlined "Isolation of Jail's C Wing"'.
The article said prisoners in C Wing were sexual offenders and incarcerated there for their protection. The article also said: "The wing is home to the jail's sex offenders - a collection of rapists and child molesters."
Mr Hill, who was housed in C Wing at the time, said the words meant that he was a sex offender, child molester or rapist and that he was incarcerated there for his
protection. At the time, he was serving a three-year sentence for assault on a garda causing actual bodily harm. He had never been charged with or convicted of any type of sex offence.
The newspaper admitted the words complained off were published but denied that Mr Hill suffered any injury to his reputation. It pleaded that on November 21st, 1995, it had published a statement making clear that Mr Hill had neither been incarcerated for nor convicted in connection with any sexual offences.
The jury retired for under an hour and when it returned it awarded damages of £60,000. Mr Justice Barr directed that the money be paid to Mr Hill's solicitor and held pending any appeal by the newspaper. He said interest on the money could be paid to Mr Hill.
Costs were also awarded against the newspaper but the judge said he would put a stay on these pending any appeal.