Paper to pay €11k over player’s photo

A NEWSPAPER has been ordered by a High Court judge to increase to €11,000 its payment of damages to a young GAA footballer over publication of a photograph in which his private parts were exposed.

The Carlow Nationalist is also facing legal costs of more than €100,000 following lengthy High Court proceedings over the publication in June, 2005.

The newspaper had been ordered by Carlow Circuit Court in June 2006 to pay Richard Sinnott, 24, of Clonegal, Co Carlow, €6,500 damages for breach of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional harm and negligence arising from the publication.

The newspaper had published pictures of Mr Sinnott taken while he was playing in a GAA match. His private parts were visible in one.

Last year, when rejecting the newspaper’s appeal against the findings of the Circuit Court after a seven- day hearing, Mr Justice Declan Budd ruled the publication of the photograph was negligent and resulted from “a publishing mess”.

The judge, who earlier had observed the photograph featured “all the paraphernalia of human reproduction”, said it “strained all credulity” that the publication was simply accidental.

The paper’s sports editor, Paul Donaghy, had described the use of the photo as “a blunder” and was “stricken with horror” at its publication, the judge said.

Mr Justice Budd directed that damages be increased to €11,000, plus costs for Mr Sinnott. He refused to certify, for determination by the Supreme Court, a point of law in relation to the imposition of damages.