Madam, – The Garda Commissioner has announced he is looking into the issue of special privileges for some court witnesses (Home News, February 1st). Perhaps he should consider extending these same privileges to those victims’ families, who by exiting the main entrance of the courts complex in Dublin are forced to run the gauntlet of the press at the end of a harrowing trial? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Personal privacy or prurient public curiosity? I am happy that Citizen Treacy was not photographed before or after she sat in a courtroom and gave intimate evidence to a crowd of more than a hundred people. What she looks like has absolutely nothing to do with “public interest”.
The sad thing is that she might have been better off making a brief appearance on the footpath. She will now be hunted by paparazzi who will take (in every sense of the word) photos of her and sell them to the highest tabloid bidder who will happen to increase circulation while publishing the pictures to honour the mantra of “public interest”. – Yours, etc,