THE NATIONAL Union of Journalists (NUJ) has expressed “grave concern” at the level of damages awarded on Wednesday to communications consultant Monica Leech in her libel case against Independent Newspapers.
A High Court jury awarded Ms Leech €1.872 million after it found that a series of articles published in the Evening Herald in 2004 falsely alleged that she had been having an affair with Minister Martin Cullen.
Independent Newspapers will apply for a stay on the award today to facilitate its appeal to the Supreme Court. It described the award as “totally disproportionate”.
The NUJ’s Irish secretary Séamus Dooley said the record level of damages “bore no relationship with reality” and was disproportionate.
A Labour Party spokesman said the party had consistently supported the need for reform of the libel laws. “We need a modern legislative framework that will strike an appropriate balance between protecting the character of individuals from attack on the one hand, and upholding freedom of the press and freedom of expression on the other,” he said.
Ms Leech’s award is the highest award made by a jury in a libel case. Previously, the highest award made by a jury was in February 2008, when Martin McDonagh from Sligo was awarded €900,000 after he sued the Sunday World over an article describing him as a “Traveller drug king”.
The article was published on September 5th, 1999, as he was being questioned about a drugs seizure at Tubbercurry, Co Sligo. He denied any involvement with the importation and was released without charge.
That award was also appealed to the Supreme Court and Mr Justice Éamon de Valera put a stay on it, preventing payment of all but €90,000 of the sum.
In 2006, a jury awarded businessman Denis O’Brien €750,000 against the Mirror Group of newspapers, over an article published eight years earlier.
That award resulted from an appeal to the Supreme Court of the original award of €250,000. The Supreme Court found it disproportionately high and referred the case back to the High Court to be retried only in relation to the amount of damages.
