A GUESTHOUSE owner who was defamed when a sketch on an RTÉ radio programme described his premises as “a byword for prostitution” was awarded €70,000 in damages by a High Court jury yesterday.
Vincent O'Toole (84), who owns the Maryland House, the Mall, Waterford city, sued the station claiming he was libelled in a Nob Nationsketch on 2FM's Gerry Ryan show in August 2008.
The court heard he previously successfully sued the Sunday Worldover a similar libel and was awarded €50,000 in damages.
RTÉ accepted he had been libelled and the jury was asked to assess damages to include, if appropriate, aggravated damages.
After two hours and 10 minutes of deliberation, the jury said it had assessed damages at €70,000, including aggravated damages.
The court heard RTÉ had already made a lodgment in court of €52,250 in relation to the case and counsel for Mr O’Toole, John Gordon SC, asked that that sum be paid immediately in part satisfaction of the award.
Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne did so and also awarded costs to Mr O’Toole.
Afterwards, Mr O’Toole said he had been vindicated although the the amount he received “wouldn’t paint my house”. However, the jury thought it was alright and he wanted to thank its members for bringing him through the case. RTÉ “took three years to apologise to me. It was unpardonable,” he said.
During the four-day case, the court heard the Nob Nationsketch featured the character "Kevin My-arse" giving a "Linguaphone" guide to Waterford slang.
It stated: “The Maryland is a byword in Waterford for prostitution, although the original establishment from whence the term is derived has ceased business.”
Mr O’Toole said the words suggested he was a brothel-keeper, that his home was the haunt of undesirables and that he was or is involved in racketeering.
RTÉ said it was sorry for the broadcast but denied Mr O’Toole had been brought into public scandal, odium or contempt.
Mr O’Toole told the court he was “thunderstruck ” and “disgusted” by the broadcast. He could not understand why anybody could sink to such a low level.
“That is the way the media is going these days, ” he said. “They are out of control.”
He said he was a pensioner on €300 a week and felt there was no chance of getting his business going.
A man who wanted a room believed his premises was a brothel and wanted to know “the price”, he said.
His wife Ruth told the court there were ongoing problems with people calling to the premises looking for prostitutes and some even got annoyed when told to go away.
In his closing speech to the jury, Paul O’Higgins SC, for RTÉ, said the station accepted it libelled Mr O’Toole but urged that any damages award should be fair to both sides .
RTÉ had slipped up badly and was unequivocally sorry for what it did, Mr O’Higgins said.
He asked the jury to take into account that RTÉ never sought to gain anything from the sketch.
Mr O’Higgins also urged the jury not to award aggravated damages because this was not a case where RTÉ had made the situation worse after the broadcast by giving the “two fingers” to Mr O’Toole. Mr Gordon said in his address that RTÉ had no sympathy for his client’s plight once the matter was brought to their attention.
It left the broadcast on the internet for nearly 18 months after it first went out, claiming this was an accident. This was not only irrelevant, but accidents like this simply should not happen.
While RTÉ had called the head of 2FM radio, John McMahon, to give evidence even though he was not in that job at the time of the broadcast, it had chosen not to call anybody who was involved. “Why? Was it too embarrassing?” counsel asked.
There was nobody in RTÉ appointed to monitor situations where items like that could remain available on the internet and where there is “perpetual publication” and a repetition of a libel, the court was told.