€900,000 libel award overturned

A €900,000 damages award made by a High Court jury against a newspaper which described a man as a drug dealer has been overturned on grounds of a “perverse” jury finding the man was not a drug dealer.

The three-judge the Court of Appeal unanimously overturned the 2008 award made to Martin McDonagh.

The €900,000 award arose out of a High Court jury finding that Mr McDonagh was libelled in a Sunday World article describing him as a “Traveller drug king” following the seizure by gardaí of IR£500,000 (€635,000) worth of cannabis and amphetamines in August 1999 in Tubbercurry, Co Sligo.