The High Court has refused to grant released rapist Michael Murray an injunction preventing a number of newspapers publishing his address and pictures of him pending the outcome of a full court action over alleged breaches of his privacy and right to life.
Mr Murray (50), who was released from prison last year after serving 13 years for raping four women over a six day period in 1995, claimed he has been unable to have a permanent home since then because the papers keep publishing his address and pictures of him.
He is now living in various Bed and Breakfasts and had also lost a job because of the actions of the newspapers, he claimed.
Refusing the injunction today, Ms Justice Mary Irvine said Mr Murray had not established his rights outweighed those of the newspapers to freedom of expression and the right of the public to discuss the issue of the release of sex offenders.
Articles containing details of his known whereabouts “contribute significantly” to that debate and to the interest of the public in being able to identify people convicted of violent offences, she said.
“Such knowledge may allow members of the public to adjust their behaviour in whatever manner they feel might best protect them from any risk to which they may legitimately feel exposed.”
She was giving judgment on Mr Murray’s application for injunctions preventing further publication of photos and his address pending a full court action against five newspapers alleging his privacy and right to life had been interfered with by the publication of stories and photographs.
The proceedings arose out of publicity in the Evening Herald, the Daily Star, the Star on Sunday, the News of the World and the Sun. The full action is expected to be heard sometime in October and the proceedings have been adjourned to Wednesday next for mention.
In her decision, the judge said Mr Murray had not demonstrated the “necessary evidence” to support his claim of a real risk to his life or that he was likely to succeed in further prohibiting the publication of information about him by the newspapers. He had not suggested, to date, any actual threat had been made to his life, she said.
While he said he did not feel safe living at a number of addresses over the past nine months because details of those locations had been published, he had failed to explain why this was so, she said. No evidence had been produced which showed he had been assaulted or subjected to any type of verbal or physical abuse or threatened in any way.
All that had occurred was that he had been asked to move on by various landlords and estate agents or, alternatively, he had done so of his own volition, she said.
While accepting Mr Murray enjoyed a constitutional and European Convention right to privacy and might later succeed in proving there was interference with that right, she was not satisfied he had demonstrated, “by proper evidence” a convincing case his privacy had been unjustifiably intruded upon such as to justify curtailing the newspapers’ right to freedom of expression at this stage.
It must be accepted there is a public interest in a debate which contends there should be publication of information in relation to sex offenders released from prison, she said.
The evidence was “totally insufficient” to justify the wide-ranging orders sought given that the extent of the public interest in his identity was greatly dependent on the risk he may currently pose to the community.
The judge said Mr Murray had also failed to provide documentary evidence about his efforts at rehabilitation while in prison or to show he engaged with the probation service since his release. Nor had he produced any medical evidence to suggest he is unlikely to be a risk in the community he lives in.
This case differed from another case in Northern Ireland where newspapers were restrained from publishing pictures of a man convicted of murder just before he was about to be released from prison, she said.
While that man had served a life sentence for one offence, he had no prior history of violent crime whereas Mr Murray was a repeat offender who served a lengthy sentence in the UK for a rape committed in 1989 before coming to Ireland and committing offences here, the judge said.
The court had little in terms of “cogent or proper evidence” to suggest Mr Murray was unlikely to reoffend and this was a fact which must weigh heavily on it in deciding the level of the public interest in information concerning his identity and whereabouts, she said.