RTÉ crime correspondent awarded €60,000 for libel
It is understood the sum is a record award in a libel case conducted at circuit court level where normal awards are limited to a maximum of just over €38,000.
Mr Reynolds took the libel action following the publication of an editorial article written by Mr Stone in Garda Review in September 2001 which was critical of one of his reports for RTÉ.
Mr Stone’s article claimed the station’s crime correspondent had engaged in “extremely irresponsible journalism” after he had reported a story on September 5, 2001, about the arrest of a garda in relation to an alleged rape of a woman in Tenerife.
The GRA general secretary also accused Mr Reynolds of bias by portraying members of the gardaí in an unfavourable light as he had claimed that the arrested officer had been intoxicated and twice thrown out of a pub.
He also criticised the reporter for using the backdrop of Garda headquarters in Dublin for a piece of footage in the report.
During a two-day hearing at the Dublin Circuit Civil Court earlier this month, the RTÉ reporter said it was very important for his role as crime correspondent to have the trust of gardaí.
Mr Reynolds, whose father is a retired garda superintendent, expressed fear that the quality of his work could suffer if his relationship with gardaí deteriorated as a result of the Garda Review article. He described how he had been “shocked” at the content and tone of Mr Stone’s editorial.
Claiming a defence of fair comment, the GRA general secretary said he had a right on behalf of rank and file gardaí to criticise the coverage of a report about a garda’s arrest in Spain. Mr Stone said the GRA had received up to 60 calls from gardaí who were concerned about how Mr Reynolds had reported the story.
In his ruling the President of the Circuit Court, Judge Matthew Deery, said Mr Stone’s editorial had contained “serious defamatory material” concerning Mr Reynolds.
The judge said the article should have brought the basic facts about Mr Reynolds’ report to the reader’s attention if it wanted to be considered an opinion piece so that readers could judge for themselves if the published material was fair comment.
In the absence of such facts, Judge Deery observed that any reader of the article would have come to the view that Mr Reynolds had no understanding of due process. He noted that the plaintiff was “a journalist of the highest standing” whose job with RTÉ required him to be respected and trusted. The judge said the Garda Review article was particularly injurious to Mr Reynolds in that context.
He also ordered Mr Stone and the GRA to pay legal costs in the case. It is estimated that they could add on an extra €30,000 to the defendants’ final legal bill.
Outside the courtroom, Mr Reynolds, who was accompanied by RTÉ managing director of news, Ed Mulhall, and several colleagues, exchanged a brief handshake with Mr Stone.
Commenting on the ruling, Mr Reynolds said he was very grateful to the judge for vindicating his position.
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