Two national newspapers and TV3 have been fined nominal sums of £100 each by Mr Justice Finnegan who found them in contempt of his order concerning anonymity of the victims in a recent Central Criminal Court rape case.
Mr Justice Finnegan accepted undertakings on behalf of TV3 and the Evening Herald to pay sums of £4,000 each, and of the Irish Independent to pay £5,000, to the victims in the case, in which he jailed a man for 15 years for raping his daughter 24 times and torturing her and her mother.
He said the £13,000 total should be divided, giving 80 per cent to the daughter and 20 per cent to her mother. He asked that Father Peter McVerry and the chief social worker in the Northern Area Health Board be requested to act as trustees in the case of the younger victim.
Mr Justice Finnegan said he didn't want the money to be put into the "overbulging State coffers" or into wards of court where it might not be easily accessible for the benefit of the younger victim.
He accepted that the publications performed important public functions in highlighting shortcomings in the social services, and that without media coverage these issues might not have been dealt with.
However, he found they had breached his order made on July 7th under Section 7 of the Criminal Law (Rape) Amendment Act 1981, when he jailed the man.
The matter arose out of material published in the Evening Herald on July 10th and 12th, and by the Irish Independent, The Irish Times and TV3 on July 11th. The judge accepted The Irish Times had not breached the order.
Mr Justice Finnegan said the standard of court reporting was very high but he thought other journalists might not have been as aware of the standards required in these cases.
He earlier accepted the submissions of Mr Richard Nesbitt SC, for The Irish Times, that that publication had not breached the order and was not guilty of contempt. He said he believed The Irish Times had performed a very good public service through publishing the article by Padraig O'Morain which highlighted serious deficiencies in the social services. The social services were overwhelmed at present. Mr Justice Finnegan said Mr O'Morain was not a court journalist and had no intention to infringe the order. A social worker had told the court that without other information the victim could not be identified in his article. Therefore The Irish Times was not guilty of contempt.
He directed that the Evening Herald, the Irish Independent and TV3 each pay one-third of the costs of the hearing. He made no order in relation to costs to The Irish Times.
Mr Felix McEnroy SC (with Mr Eoin McCullough), for the Irish Independent and the Evening Herald, said his clients never had any intention of breaching the court order and apologised for so doing.
Mr McEnroy added that the company had adopted new measures in relation to legal vetting of photographs prior to publication.
Mr Hugh Mohan SC, counsel for TV3, said it was an error of judgment on the part of a duty news editor which led to its unintentional breach of the order. The report dealt with the wider social issues arising from the case and did not highlight the victims' residence, which had been used as a backdrop for the recording. That decision had been made without reference to legal advice.
Mr Justice Finnegan said it was accepted that rape was underreported to police by victims, but that was more so in the past. The increased reporting of rape cases from the courts encouraged more victims to come forward with the guarantee of anonymity. Events such as this could interfere with the objective of getting more victims to come forward.
The judge said the situations of the two newspapers and television station were broadly similar and he had to take into account the important role they played in publicising the social issues involved. If anything like this came before him again, he would take a very serious view.