AN AGREEMENT has been reached between lawyers for the Sunday Worldand Ruth Hickey concerning the legal costs of her failed action against the newspaper alleging breach of privacy and defamation, the High Court heard yesterday.
Ms Hickey (36), Archers Wood, Castaheany, Dublin 15, sued the newspaper over articles published about her, her newborn child and her partner, David Agnew, estranged husband of stage performer Twink.
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 newspaper “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 yesterday when Eoin McCullough, for the Sunday World, told the judge an accord about the costs had been reached. 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 (Adele King) 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 Worlddenied 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. On the defamation question, the judge said while the word “whore” was capable of being defamatory, he was satisfied any reasonable reader would simply see it as vulgar abuse “expressed in strong and offensive terms”.