An agreement has been reached between lawyers for the Sunday World and Ruth Hickey over the legal costs of her failed action against the newspaper alleging breach of privacy and defamation, the High Court heard today.
Ms Hickey (36), Archer’s Wood, Castaheany, Dublin 15, sued the paper over articles published about her, her newborn child and her partner, David Agnew, estranged husband of stage performer Twink, whose real name is Adele King.
She claimed the repetition by the newspaper in two subsequent articles of words used in a voicemail message and in a scrapped interview between Twink and the late broadcaster Gerry Ryan meant she was a prostitute and her son a bastard.
Last week, the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, rejected the claims of breach of privacy and defamation but added he believed the articles in the paper “represented the lowest standards of journalism imaginable”.
He said he was making those remarks in the context of an application for costs of the case, which was adjourned until today when Eoin McCullough SC, for the Sunday World, told the judge had reached an accord about the costs. All that was required from the court was to dismiss the claim with no order, counsel said.
The case was heard over four days in the High Court last July and arose initially from photographs taken of Ms Hickey, Mr Agnew, and their newborn son as they were leaving the Births, Marriages and Deaths office in Dublin on May 10th, 2006.
Two articles were later published which included comments by Twink during what the judge described as a “notoriously abusive” voicemail message left by her on Mr Agnew’s phone in which she referred to Ms Hickey as a whore and her child as a bastard.
Ms Hickey sued for breach of privacy and defamation and the Sunday World denied her claims.
Mr Justice Kearns found there was no breach of privacy because the photo of them leaving the registry office was taken in a public place while they were performing the public function of registering their child’s name. He also found no evidence to establish Ms Hickey’s contention claim a campaign of surveillance had been carried out by the paper.
The judge held Ms Hickey had sought publicity herself about her relationship with Mr Agnew and the birth of their child. He did not see anything in Ms Hickey’s favour which outweighed the right of the newspaper’s freedom of expression and this issue should more properly be the subject of legislation.
On the question of defamation, the judge said the first article, published in May 2006, when the word “whore” was used, the context was clear. It was the reported voicemail speech of Twink who was plainly extremely angry at the affair between her husband and Ms Hickey, he said.
While the repetition of something said by another person affords no defence to a newspaper which publishes a defamation, and while the word was clearly capable of being defamatory, the judge said he was quite satisfied any reasonable reader would simply see it as vulgar abuse “expressed in strong and offensive terms”.