David Walsh defends Tom Humphries character reference

Sunday Times journalist David Walsh has defended his decision to write a character reference for Tom Humphries, the former Irish Times journalist convicted of grooming a teenage girl to engage in sexual acts.

His decision was borne out of a 30-year friendship with Humphries, he said, in yesterday’s edition of the Sunday Times. “I wrote a personal character reference for Tom because we have been friends for 30 years and, despite the serious wrong he has done, I could not abandon him,” Walsh said.

He prefaced his statement with “The young girl whom Tom betrayed has suffered terribly from this crime”.