Use of words were a ‘gross intrusion’ to right to privacy, High Court hears

IT cannot be permissible under the Constitution to photograph a mother and her young son and then use words suggesting she is a whore and the child a bastard, the High Court was told yesterday by counsel for the woman who claims she was defamed and her family’s privacy invaded by a newspaper.

Turlough O’Donnell SC, for Ruth Hickey, 36, said articles published by the Sunday World were a “gross intrusion” of the right to privacy of these two people and he asked the court to award aggravated, exemplary and punitive damages against the paper.

High Court president, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, said he hoped to give his judgment in the case at the start of the next law term in October after he heard legal submissions from both sides yesterday.