A garda superintendent yesterday lost his High Court libel action against the Sunday Tribune.
Det Supt Patrick Joseph Browne (47), who was not named in the article, was also ordered to pay the costs of the three-day hearing which for both sides are estimated at around £90,000.
He had claimed that an article in May 1998 meant he had neglected to investigate a serious complaint about a man who was later at the centre of a siege in Ballyconnell, Co Cavan. During cross-examination the superintendent said he had sued for libel three or four times previously.
He said he received a total of £63,000 in three cases and was nearly sure there had been a fourth in which he got £15,000 to £20,000. However, in his instructions to the jury Mr Justice Kearns said there was no suggestion that the superintendent had obtained compensation improperly at any stage in the past and it would be wrong of them to take those other claims into account.
The superintendent sued the newspaper on the basis of an article headlined "Gardai warned about German man's `arsenal' ". Counsel for the officer said the newspaper had incorrectly attributed responsibility to him for the tragic death of one person and the serious injury of another.
The newspaper admitted it published the article but denied it identified the superintendent or that the words contained the meanings claimed. In the article it was stated that gardai had been warned that a German national who shot a sheriff and two bailiffs as they attempted to evict him and his dying mother from a house in Co Cavan the previous year had an arsenal in his house.
It added that a solicitor's letter, seen by the newspaper, had informed gardai that Mr Gerrit Isenborger had an array of firearms in his possession and asked that his house be searched.
The letter was sent by a firm of solicitors, Walter P. Toolan and Sons, acting on behalf of the owner of the house, Mr Michael Hehle, two months before the attempted eviction during which Mr Isenborger shot at the Cavan County Sheriff, Mr Thomas Owens, and two bailiffs, the article stated.
The report said the letter suggested that it might be prudent to carry out an official search of Mr Isenborger's premises to ascertain if in fact he held illegal firearms. The Sunday Tribune quoted a spokesman for the solicitors as confirming that the letter was sent and saying the gardai had neglected and omitted to investigate the complaints in the letter sent two months before the siege.
On behalf of Det Supt Browne, it was submitted that he had taken the letter extremely seriously. He immediately sent a letter to Mr Hehle's solicitors indicating the steps he was allowed to take. It pointed out the legal constraints in obtaining a search warrant and said he needed to be in possession of detailed knowledge regarding the alleged possession of illegal arms by Mr Isenborger.
Counsel for the superintendent submitted that his client had no way of knowing on what Mr Hehle's suspicion was founded.
He contacted gardai "on the ground" to see if there was any reason to suspect Mr Isenborger had firearms. He was told Mr Isenborger had not come to their notice.
The officer heard nothing back from the solicitors. Before Mr Isenborger's surrender at the siege, his mother died in the house from cancer. He is serving a five-year sentence for his part in the siege.
After an absence of 90 minutes, the jury answered "Yes" in reply to the question: "Was the article true in substance and in fact?"
Mr Justice Kearns allowed costs to the newspaper. He refused an application for Supt Browne to put a stay on the costs order in the event of an appeal. The judge said he could apply to the Supreme Court for a stay.
Before the jury retired Mr Justice Kearns instructed them to approach the case in a clinical way. He said sympathy for either side was totally inappropriate and all they had to decide was if the article was true or substantially true. If it was, then publication was justified. He told them if the main gist of the article was true and it contained a minor error, a defence of justification was still valid.
He told them the plaintiff's claim was that he had been grievously injured by the article, which suggested he neglected his duties. The newspaper said this was true, that he had neglected his duty, and the jury had to reach its own conclusion on that, based on the evidence.