A Clare man, alleged to have defamed a lawyer by posting offensive remarks on the internet, has been told by a High Court judge that he must do all he can to have them removed from the website.
Dublin barrister Jayne Maguire claimed John Gill, Drumline, Newmarket-on-Fergus, had posted grossly defamatory statements about her "of the most offensive and damaging nature both personally and professionally" at rateyoursolicitor.com.
Ms Maguire is seeking damages for defamation and breach of privacy and an interlocutory injunction restraining Gill from continuing with publication of the statements about her on the site she says is operated and administered by him.
Paul O'Higgins SC, for Ms Maguire, said he would seek to join seven others, Mary McDonnell, Vincent Kilkenny, Mary Garaha, Nuala Mahon, Seán Dabhóir, Dan McCaffrey and CA Blewitt, to the proceedings.
When he told the court that Gill had ignored an interim injunction last week directing him to remove the offensive material from the website, Mr Justice Michael Hanna extended the injunction to include anyone with knowledge of the order, in particular the seven named by Mr O'Higgins.
Mr O'Higgins, who appeared with Mark Harty, had sought to have Gill committed to prison for contempt of court. Following a hearing of several hours, Mr Justice Hanna adjourned both the interlocutory and contempt applications until October 5th.
He told Gill he should put himself to the pin of his collar to ensure that the "particularly offensive" remarks were removed - if necessary by striking down the complete website.
Gill, who claimed he had over a number of years been "robbed and defrauded of tens of thousands" by members of the legal profession, told the court he never at any time published or permitted to be published or posted on the site anything whatsoever concerning Ms Maguire.
Ms Maguire had told him during a telephone conversation she was aware a colleague had posted the material on the website. He said he had no means of removing anything from rateyoursolicitor.com or any other website.
Karyn Harty, a partner in solicitors McCann FitzGerald, stated in an affidavit she had discovered links to Gill's name, home address, fax and phone number through another website, crookedlawyers.com to which she had been directed by clicking "contact us" on the rateyoursolicitor site.
Ms Maguire said on September 6th it had come to her attention there had been published on rateyoursolicitor.com a series of comments defamatory of her which were wholly untrue.
She contacted Gill who had adamantly refused to remove the contents of the website as they related to her. He had also participated in a radio station interview giving further publicity to the allegations about her.
Ms Maguire said that in a newspaper article in November 2005 it had been stated that Victims of the Legal Profession Society had purchased the domain name www.rateyoursolicitor.com and Gill, as spokesman, had stated that the society planned to use the site to "list all rogue solicitors in our website".