An Waterford city hotelier has been awarded €50,000 libel damages and costs after a High Court jury decided a reference to his hotel in a Sunday Worldarticle wrongly meant he was a brothel keeper.
After the jury handed down its verdict following two hours deliberation, Mr Vincent O'Toole (80), owner of the Maryland Hotel at The Mall, Waterford said he had been vindicated in bringing the case.
Asked for his views on the award, he said "€50,000, you would put that on a horse".
In the jury's opinion, the amount was all right, but not in his, he said. Mr O'Toole said he felt "disillusioned" but, he added, people knew in their hearts that the reference to his hotel "was all a lie". The article was still demeaning his standing in Waterford city and elsewhere, he said.
The Sunday Worldarticle, published in the ' City Slicker'column on August 1st, 2004 , had stated that a website, www.upthedesise.com, had "come up with the first ever comprehensive Waterford dictionary".
The article went on to state: "some of the entries are fascinating like:..."maryland the, An infamous small hotel in the red light district of' Waterford city. Colloquial term for a brothel."
Mr Eoin McCullough SC, for the Sunday World, had urged the jury to conclude a reasonable reader would regard the article as "a joke" and a "spoof" not intended to be taken seriously, even if they didn't consider it was in good taste.
In proceedings which opened on Wednesday before Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne and a jury, Mr O'Toole alleged he was libeled in the article and that it meant he was a brothel keeper.
They jury yesterday decided that the words complained of in the article did mean he was a brothel keeper and assessed damages at €50,000.