Well-known Dublin accountant Mr Noel Fox has brought a libel action against Cork liquidator, Dr Michael Grimes, over a letter written by Dr Grimes to the chairman of Aer Rianta, the High Court was told yesterday.
Mr Justice Shanley adjourned to December 8th an application by Mr Fox for an interlocutory injunction preventing Dr Grimes from publishing or disseminating in any form the letter addressed to Aer Rianta.
A temporary restraining order had been granted to Mr Fox, a senior partner in the firm of Oliver M Freaney and Co, by the High Court last month against Dr Grimes, of Washington Street, Cork. Mr Justice Shanley said that order was to continue.
Mr John Gordon SC, applying for an interlocutory injunction, told Mr Justice Shanley that Dr Grimes's letter contained a gross libel.
In the course of the letter, Dr Grimes had threatened that, in the event of "the matter he wanted done, not being done", he would proceed to disseminate the libel to the public.
Mr Gordon said Mr Fox had been alarmed when this letter was brought to his attention and was granted an interim injunction on October 13th. In response to Mr Fox's application for an interlocutory injunction, Dr Grimes had sworn two affidavits.
Dr Grimes, said Mr Gordon, deliberately intended to use the affidavits on a privileged occasion to effectively disseminate on a wider basis an even broader and more scandalous range of allegations, not only against Mr Fox but other persons and institutions.
Dr Grimes sought to exploit the hearing of Mr Fox's application for an interlocutory injunction to achieve what the temporary injunction sought to prevent.
Mr Gordon asked Mr Justice Shanley to look at the affidavits. There was legislation under which this application for an injunction could be heard in camera.
Dr Grimes said the effect of Mr Justice Shanley reading the affidavits in private would be to hear the matter in camera. When it came to be heard, the libel action would be in public.
Dr Grimes said his defence would be justification. The original letter would be opened to the jury at the libel trial and it made no logic for the application for an interlocutory injunction to be heard in camera.
Mr Justice Shanley said Mr Gordon claimed the jury trial might be a year away. If Dr Grimes lost and the allegations were made public then his client's reputation would have been destroyed. Even if Mr Fox were to succeed in his libel action, then Mr Gordon was arguing no money could redress the damage done.
Having said he would have a hearing in camera for a short period, Mr Justice Shanley later adjourned the matter until December 8th.