'I found it hard to get out of bed and face the day'

Norman called the Livelineand talked to Joe. He said he was a member of the Progressive Democrats.

Alarms bells should have gone off immediately in the RTÉ studio. As almost everyone knows, Progressive Democrats are far too busy creating a business climate and reaping the benefits of our enterprise-led economy to be listening to radio phone-in shows.

It was a Thursday afternoon. Any self-respecting PD not at their desk or at a meeting of their local Small to Medium Firms Association would have been out on the golf course.

But to be fair to him, Joe Duffy is from Ballyfermot, where the wisdom of the PD has never been appreciated by the electorate. While the popular broadcaster has done very well for himself in life, he might not be fully in tune with the party's ethos.

So Norman is given access to the airwaves to join the discussion on the rights and wrongs of the handsome fees being paid to Minister Martin Cullen's communications adviser, Monica Leech.

The caller appears to be siding with the Minister and his employee. "Keep defending," encourages Joe.

The man purporting to be a PD continues: "We really don't know what she's been doing anyway. Maybe she's been doing other things for him besides constituency work - maybe she's . . ." And with that, he unleashes a disgracefully lewd, juvenile and utterly untrue remark about what he thinks the lady might be doing with the Minister.

Joe immediately cuts off the call. The show switches to an advertising break. When the programme resumes, the presenter issues an on-the-spot apology. It was a bogus call. When the programme ends, a second apology is aired.

Meanwhile, Monica Leech is in her car, driving down the motorway from Waterford to Dublin. She is tuned into the show because her husband has alerted her to the fact that she is the main topic under discussion.

Two and a half years later, and Monica is in the High Court, the plaintiff in a libel trial, recalling her feeling of absolute shock when she heard those crude words spoken about her.

"I felt sickened. I felt cheapened. I felt it was unfair. I actually pulled into the hard shoulder. I was quite upset and shaking, and I actually got physically sick." Her first thoughts were about her sons - one in his early twenties, the other in his Leaving Cert year. Had they heard the crude comment? She knew her husband had been listening.

Despite her upset, she told Judge Peter Charleton yesterday, she kept to her appointments in a professional manner, but it hadn't been easy. That same day, she instructed her solicitors to issue proceedings for an apology and damages against RTÉ.

That case, as the youthful-looking jury of six men and six women heard, was settled. Under cross-examination by Eoin McCullough SC, Ms Leech said she received the sum of €250,000 and her costs.

The Livelinebroadcast and the series of apologies flowing from RTÉ in the immediate aftermath formed a major part of yesterday's proceedings in court number 12, where the PR consultant's libel action against the Irish Independentnewspaper entered its second day.

As she began her evidence, she couldn't bring herself to repeat the comment, finding it too distressing to repeat in front of her two sons, aged 19 and 26. Judge Charleton told her it would have to be repeated before the court. The two young men left, but in the end, Ms Leech was spared the ordeal. Her lawyer, Paul O'Higgins SC, read out the offensive words: "maybe she's sucking his cock."

The next morning she said the family came to the conclusion that "what was said had been said". All they could do "was knuckle down and get on with it". Then her brother telephoned to say the Irish Independenthad run an article in which they repeated the upsetting words used the previous day. Asked what her reaction had been upon hearing this, she said "I found it very hard to get out of bed and to face the day".

As Ms Leech explained yesterday: "Here it was, in the Independent, in black and white, for everybody, forever." She was angry that the newspaper would take the time "to sit down and take a decision to actually shred my reputation".

After much discussion of what constitutes a proper apology, Mr McCullough then pointed out that she had taken immediate steps to demand damages. "It wasn't just a case of sitting back," he said.