Claim of undue pressure fom Mail ‘ludicrous’

A NEWSPAPER editor yesterday rejected claims from author Justine Delaney-Wilson that his reporters put her under so much pressure she had to destroy her taped recordings of a minister confessing to taking cocaine.

Ted Verity, editor of the Irish Mail on Sunday, said the author’s attempt to blame the publication for her decision to get rid of the admission was ludicrous and defamatory.

“Justine Delaney-Wilson’s attempt to blame the Irish Mail on Sunday for her decision to destroy the alleged tape of her interview with the ‘cocaine-snorting minister’ is ludicrous,” said Mr Verity.

“Her claims that she was somehow put under undue pressure by our staff are untrue and defamatory.”

In an interview with the Sunday Tribune yesterday, Ms Delaney-Wilson said she destroyed the tapes because of the behaviour of certain sections of the media. “I destroyed it after a period of intense pressure, intimidation and threats,” she said.

“The Mail on Sunday were particularly unpleasant. People were following me and hanging around my family home.”

She told the Sunday Tribune she sought independent legal advice and was told she was “unable to hang onto” the tape.

She said: “There simply was no safe place for it. It’s all very well for people to say they wouldn’t destroy it but when you have children it’s a different story.

“If the choice is to destroy it rather than have it fall into the wrong hands then I’ll take the hit on my credibility.”

She said she was made feel her family might be in danger. “There were people in the garden and at the front door. It was a very difficult time.”

But Mr Verity rejected the comments. “In the interests of publicising her book Ms Delaney-Wilson agreed to be interviewed by the Irish Mail on Sunday, met our journalist and was happy to have her photograph taken.

“Our only concern has been to establish the veracity or otherwise of the extremely serious allegations Ms Delaney-Wilson was making,” he said.

“These are the very same questions that RTÉ and her own publishers, Gill and Macmillan, are trying to have answered.”

Controversy has raged since RTÉ broadcast a two-part programme based on Ms Delaney-Wilson’s book High Society.

Concerns were raised over the credibility of the claims from a minister, and over the existence of a recording of his interview.

The drama took a further twist last week when Ms Delaney-Wilson released a statement saying she had a recording of the minister’s interview but she had “not retained it”.

Ms Delaney-Wilson said she was considering legal action against a number of media outlets.