{"id":152063,"date":"2025-11-21T14:35:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T14:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/152063\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T14:35:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T14:35:07","slug":"denis-obrien-and-spokesman-must-pay-e411750-to-each-of-two-solicitors-they-defamed-jury-finds-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/152063\/","title":{"rendered":"Denis O\u2019Brien and spokesman must pay \u20ac411,750 to each of two solicitors they defamed, jury finds \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/denis-obrien\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/denis-obrien\/\">Denis O\u2019Brien<\/a> defamed two lawyers in a 2016 press release that implied they acted for the IRA, a High Court jury has found.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mr O\u2019Brien and his spokesman James Morrissey must pay solicitors Darragh Mackin and Gavin Booth \u20ac411,750 each to compensate the damage done to their reputations arising from the defamation. The jury awarded general and aggravated damages. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The solicitors, partners at Belfast firm Phoenix Law, brought the proceedings against Mr O\u2019Brien and Mr Morrissey complaining of a sentence in the statement that read: \u201cSinn F\u00e9in\/IRA certainly got the report they paid for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mr O\u2019Brien made the statement in response to a report on media ownership in Ireland. Mr Mackin and Mr Booth were credited as co-authors of the report, which was commissioned by then Sinn F\u00e9in MEP Lynn Boylan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">At the time of the report, Mr O\u2019Brien owned substantial stakes in Irish media companies. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mr O\u2019Brien and Mr Morrissey had denied the material defamed the solicitors or meant what the solicitors alleged. It was their case that word meant the report was not fair or balanced, and was designed to advance the political agenda of Sinn F\u00e9in. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">After two hours and 20 minutes of deliberation, the jury of nine men and three women on Friday found that the words complained of meant both solicitors acted for an unlawful organisation, the IRA. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The solicitors were represented by Tom Hogan SC, Mark Harty SC and barrister Conan Fegan, and instructed by Johnsons Solicitors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The O\u2019Brien side was represented by Darren Lehane SC and barrister Joe Holt, and instructed by Meagher Solicitors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">More to follow\u2026 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denis O\u2019Brien defamed two lawyers in a 2016 press release that implied they acted for the IRA, a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7517,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-152063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-denis-obrien","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}