Columnist stands over criticism of new father

Journalist Brenda Power stands by a column in which she criticised the “appalling” behaviour of a man who sued over the interruption of his filming at the birth of his first child, the High Court heard yesterday.

Ms Power said that when midwife Iris Halbach asked John McCauley to put down his camera and stop filming after his daughter was born in Mount Carmel Hospital, Dublin, in Sept 2006, that should have been the end of the matter.

Ms Halbach asked Mr McCauley to stop filming because she had only minutes to clear to baby Simone’s lungs of mucus and get her breathing, she said.