INM sacking case told O’Brien’s spokesman sent ‘threatening’ texts

Former Independent News and Media executive Karl Brophy told the High Court yesterday he found a series of text messages from Denis O’Brien’s spokesman to be “bizarre and threatening”.

The messages arrived after a journalist rang Mr Brophy for reaction to formal complaints from Mr O’Brien’s spokesman, James Morrissey about negative coverage in the Independent group of newspapers about the businessman, who is the largest shareholder in INM.

Mr Morrissey had complained there were clear signs of a vendetta in INM against Mr O’Brien.

It followed a period of widespread coverage in much of the media, including INM titles, in which the findings of the Moriarty Tribunal against Mr O’Brien were reventilated, Mr Brophy said.

It included a large number of comment pieces, and one in particular in the Sunday Independent, which were mainly negative, Mr Brophy said.

He played no role in any of that coverage and did not give any directions about what should be written in the Sunday Independent whose editor is Anne Harris. He said. “I would be too frightened to tell Anne Harris what to do,” he said.

Mr Brophy, who was made director of corporate affairs and content development in INM in 2010 by former CEO Gavin O’Reilly, was giving evidence on the second day of his action against INM over a decision to dismiss him from his €300,000-a-year post. He is seeking damages and a declaration the decision was unlawful.

In his evidence Mr Brophy said a letter of complaint written by Mr Morrissey was leaked to The Irish Times which contacted him for a comment, particularly in relation to an allegation in the letter that Mr O’Brien had never been given the right of reply before the articles were published.

Part of Mr Brophy’s response was that it is not normal practice for the authors of opinion pieces to contact the people they were writing about. He also pointed out that Mr Morrissey himself had written an “aggressive” piece in another paper about the Sunday Independent and Anne Harris and she had not been contacted.

Not long after speaking to The Irish Times, Mr Brophy said he received the first of a series of “bizarre and threatening” text messages from Mr Morrissey. In those messages, Mr Morrissey accused Mr Brophy of “telling lies about me”.

The hearing resumes on Tuesday.