Evening Herald apologises for error

The Evening Herald has apologised to Judge Patrick McCartan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for an error in publishing a photograph which led to a trial being aborted.

Mr Paul Gallagher SC, for the Evening Herald, told Judge McCartan that his clients also offered a donation of €10,000 for charity as a token of their regret for the error.

The photograph showed the accused in a shooting trial in handcuffs and also had the wrong caption which referred to an accused in a separate case who pleaded guilty to another shooting totally unconnected with the matter at trial.

Judge McCartan accepted the offer and directed that the money be paid to the Simon Community. He said the text of the trial report was totally accurate but for the "blaring error" of the caption.

Mr Gallagher explained that the error occurred in the changeover from one edition to another.

He said a story concerning the case of the person named in the caption had been taken out and replaced in the same place by a report on the trial which had to be aborted.

Mr Gallagher said the Evening Herald had a strict policy and rule since 1997 which was that accused in trials should not be shown in handcuffs but someone dealing with the page forgot to change the caption.

"My clients regret this error and apologises to the court for what happened," he said.

Mr Des Zaiden BL, for the State, told Judge McCartan that the Director of Public Prosecutions accepted it was a genuine error and didn’t intend initiate contempt proceedings.

Mr Luige Rea BL, who appeared for the accused in the trial, said the alleged victim of the shooting in this case was to be a defence witness and was to tell the jury the accused was not the person who shot him and that he was not a drug dealer.

Mr Rea said this man was now living in fear of his life as a result of the trial being aborted and him not having a chance to deny the accused had shot him.

Judge McCartan said the courts welcomed the attendance of the media to report to the public what happened in our courts but the judge also had a duty to ensure the accused got a fair trial.

The publication of the photograph of the accused in handcuffs and with the wrong caption was of such enormity that nothing the court did could correct the situation.

The Evening Herald editor, Mr Gerard O’Regan, and the Chief News Editor of Independent Newspapers, Mr Paul Dunne, attended the hearing.