The success of my case against the British Broadcasting Corporation and in my opinion it is a very important and very significant breach in that institutions monopoly on how it broadcasts ‘news’ especially in Ireland.in
As I said outside the Four Courts I took this case to put manners on this institution. I stand over that comment. And I reject the over the top responses to it.
The British Broadcasting Corporation is supposed to be a public service provider. It is paid from public funds.
It upholds the ethos of the British state in Ireland, that goes without saying almost, but it should be publicly accountable for its broadcasting content.
It rarely is. That’s what this court case did. That’s what the jury did. The BBC lost.
Fair journalism was a victor not a loser. But only if the lessons are learned and acted upon.
When the case began six weeks ago the BBC’s legal strategy was evident very quickly.
Their narrative was that pursued by successive British and Irish governments for years.
They blamed everything during the conflict on Irish republicans, and by extension during this trial, on me.
The BBC lawyers embarked on a Jesuitical presentation of the case that tried to convince the jurors that the words broadcast and published by the British Broadcasting Corporation that I had sanctioned the murder of Denis Donaldson, did not in fact mean that I sanctioned the murder of Denis Donaldson.
They were, they said, not defending the truth of the accusation.
Instead they were, they claimed they were defending their journalism which they claimed was fair and reasonable and in the public interest and made in good faith.
They concluded their case by trying to exert moral pressure on the jurors by claiming that a defeat for the British Broadcasting Corporation would be a blow to freedom of speech and a setback to victims.
In the end the Jury didn’t buy into any of this.
On all the key issues the jurors unanimously accepted that the script used by the Spotlight programme did mean that I “sanctioned and approved the murder of Denis Donaldson.”
They also accepted that the “words published on the BBC website on 21 September 2016” meant that I “sanctioned and approved the murder of Denis Donaldson.”
And that article is still on the BBC website.
When asked if the BBC “broadcast these words in good faith” and was it “fair and reasonable to publish these words” their answer was a resounding no.
Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are very precious principles.
They are fundamental to any democratic society.
Consequently, journalists bear an onerous responsibility not to make false accusations based on unreliable and/or non-existent supporting evidence.
To do otherwise means they are behaving in support of methods that they purport to oppose.
Everyday journalists risk their lives in many parts of the world trying to expose wrongdoing by state and non-state agencies, criminal gangs and drug cartels.
In our own place Veronica Guerin, Martin O’Hagan and Lyra McKee were killed and others have been threatened.
We also have had ample experience over decades of how political censorship by the Irish and British governments, and ruthlessly enforced by state broadcasters, including the BBC and others, covered up the truth of state torture, state murder, collusion and sectarian killings.
In other parts of the world scores of journalists are killed or imprisoned each year trying to shine a light on the truth.
Over 165 journalists have been deliberately killed in the Gaza Strip in Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people.
I know many journalists. I like to think I am friendly with the vast majority of them and I wish them well and I defend their right to do their job.
For many years, when I was wrongly represented in sections of the media, my legal advice was consistently not to sue for libel.
Nine years ago the British Broadcasting Corporation broadcast their Spotlight programme and I decided to sue.
Had the BBC wanted to could have resolved this.
They chose not to.
Why? Why did they not resolve this issue when they could have.
Was it arrogance? Yes, that’s part of it. But I suspect political interference. In January the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded to a decision in the High Court in Belfast which concluded that I – and by implication up to 400 other former internees who were wrongfully detained – were entitled to compensation.
This followed the decision by the British Supreme Court that I was unlawfully detained in the 1970s.
Mr Starmer told the British Parliament that he would look at “every conceivable way” to block compensation being paid.
Leading up to and during this trial I was very conscious of the trauma of all of this on the Donaldson family and other victims.
I have urged the Minister for Justice in Dublin to meet Denis Donaldson’s family who have been denied an Article 2 compliant inquest since 2006.
And surely that can’t be right.
All victims and their families deserve our support and there is an onus on the two governments and all of us, including me, to work to help them in the time ahead.
There is also an onus on the BBC to reflect on the changes that have occurred since the Good Friday Agreement.
This isn’t the same place as it was then.
Adam Smyth should begin a process of changing the ethos of the BBC to make it reflect the new dispensation and the potential that the peace process has delivered.
There have also been the predictable responses from all the usual suspects to the verdict in this case.
This is not the time, although this is what they do, to defend bad journalism.
This is the time to learn the lessons.
They need to stop whinging.
This is senior hurling.
All of us need to face up to the new dispensation and build on the progress that has been made.
Finally, I want to thank Colette and our family for their patience over many years but in particular during the last nine years while this case has been going on.
I want to thank my legal team: my solicitors Seamus Collins and Paul Tweed; my senior Counsel Tom Hogan and Declan Doyle, Junior Counsel John Kerr and Brian Carroll and the team from Johnson’s – Carl Rooney, Darragh Carney, Hugh O’Hare and Sarah Watson. And Richard McAuley. And Chris.
As for the money that the jury awarded me in damages?
I will donate this to good causes.
These will include the children of Gaza, groups in Ireland involved in helping the homeless, An Cumann Cabhrach, the Irish language sector and other projects like this in West Belfast.
Sin é a cairde.
This is an updated Andersonstown News Column by Gerry Adams on his recent Defamation case against the BBC: See YouTube link: https://youtu.be/xVNwDpF6YpO
