https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3e50748jzko
Gerry Adams versus the BBC was one of the most high-profile and expensive courtroom showdowns in recent Irish legal history.
After five weeks of evidence and almost seven hours of jury deliberation, Mr Adams won the case and was awarded €100,000 (£84,000) in damages.
Two parties who needed no introduction – the figurehead of Irish republicanism against a UK media institution.
Sources with knowledge of the case believe the bill is between €3-5m (£2.5- £4m).
Both sides had two senior counsel each and the first three rows of the court were filled by barristers and solicitors.
Why bring proceedings in Dublin?
Mr Adams was able to do so because the 2016 BBC NI Spotlight programme which contained the allegation was seen by an estimated 16,000 viewers in Ireland.
At the time he was a TD (member of the Irish parliament) for Louth.
The accompanying online story was also able to be read south of the border – it had about 700 "clicks".
It is also fair to speculate that Mr Adams calculated he had a better chance of winning with an Irish jury with little or no memory of the Troubles.
This, by the way, could be the last High Court defamation trial by jury in Ireland, as it is in the process of changing the law.
The former Sinn Féin leader spent longer in the witness chair than any of the other nine people who testified.
His evidence spread across the first seven days – in contrast Spotlight NI reporter Jennifer O'Leary spent three days in the hot seat.
At one point Mr Adams reminded a barrister for the BBC: "I'm not on trial here."
But his reputation came to form a central part of proceedings, especially for the BBC.
BBC Spotlight NI reporter Jennifer O'Leary outside the High Court in Dublin. She has long, straight auburn hair and is wearing a navy trench coat over a white blouse. She is also wearing a multi-coloured blue and white scarf. Image source, Reuters
Image caption,
BBC Spotlight NI reporter Jennifer O'Leary gave evidence over three days
IRA denials
As one of his own barristers put it, Mr Adams is "a polarising" figure.
To that end, each side had prepared its own video presentation, a life story in two chapters if you like.
The BBC showed the jury a montage of news reports of IRA attacks, interspersed with clips of Mr Adams justifying its actions.
"What's this got to do with Spotlight?" he asked more than once during cross-examination.
As he has all his life, Mr Adams again denied ever having been in the IRA, or being a leading figure on its army council until 2005.
His lawyers' video covered the 1990s onwards, depicting Mr Adams as peacemaker, with Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela and the future King Charles III.
This, they claimed, was the reputation defamed by the BBC in 2016.
Whatever the verdict was going to be, the five week trial has renewed the debate around Mr Adams.
His continues to be a past that hasn't gone away.
by ReachersProteinFarts
18 comments
Salty BBC
Gerry fucking Adams is not “the figurehead of Irish Republicanism”.
He won a court case. Get over it.
So bbc are saying sources with knowledge of case believe the bill is a couple million
Surely the bbc are the feckin source
He’s guilty because you don’t like him Jennifer?
The BBC’s case was basically “*B..b…b…but his reputation!!!!!*” I’m embarrassed for them.
if you wondered: [Defamation reform in Ireland could bring changes to legal practice](https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/analysis/defamation-reform-ireland-legal-practice-changes)
wonder if we’ll get the video from the bbc on ” badman Gerry the Gerrorist spreading Gerror !! ” they showed
wonder if they sound tracked it
wonder if it was [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DlMoJ2V6uk)
This is far more damaging for the BBC than is being mentioned so far. They did not do their due diligence in researching their documentary and vetting their sources. The BBC has a worldwide reputation for journalistic excellence, now whether that has been justified for a long time or not is debatable at the very least, they have as much reach and credibility as any news source on the planet.
They have been badly exposed here as engaging in hack journalism and fighting a case they hadn’t a hope of winning instead of apologising and reviewing what went wrong.
Expect a considerable blowback from this verdict, certainly as regards a border poll and even Irish Government engagement in Northern Ireland affairs. The South’s political and media establishment are effectively allied with Unionism and the British Conservative milieu in hostility to Sinn Fein and its (perceived) agenda.
Everyday dog the street knows Gerry wasn’t in the Ra.
Outside the court Adams said:
“From my perspective taking this case was about putting manners on the British Broadcasting Corporation…The British Broadcasting Corporation upholds the ethos of the British State in Ireland and in my view it is out of sync with the Good Friday Agreement on many many fronts. It hasn’t caught on to where we are on this island as part of the process, the continuing process of building peace and justice and harmony and in the time ahead, unity”
“I’m very mindful that this case could’ve been settled, the licence payers are gonna pay for this, the BBC aren’t using their own money, Spotlight aren’t using their own money, it’s the licence payers and as Paul Tweed has pointed out this could’ve been sorted out a long time ago”
“I’m mindful of an unrelated case, which I won, which the supreme court in London decided that I and up to 3 or 400 other internees have been unlawfully detained and the British PM is refusing to pay compensation to what are now quite elderly former internees. He has said he will use every conceivable mechanism to prevent compensation being paid. So if you want an explanation why this went on for nine years and why we spent five weeks here, I think there is direct political interference”
Slap it right up the cunts.
You get banned from other subs for editorialising like that in a post. Fair play for getting away with it op
What a dreadful article. It wasn’t a case about his “reputation” as much as it was about a very specific allegation that was made and could not be sufficiently substantiated. The rest of it was just noise.
Won’t someone please think of Gaz?!? That’s his weekend ruined ffs
There’s no way he would have won had it been in Britain. A disgraceful outcome.
BBC are fuckin seething at this.
I’m actually very happy Gerry won, it’s further evidence Adam Smyth and the Nolan gang aren’t fit for purpose of running a public broadcaster
This is like Jimmy Savile winning a libel case for someone calling him a nonce.
Completely overshadowing the department of education trying to uphold Christian indoctrination in our primary schools. Leave yesterday’s men where they belong.
Yeeoooo you love to see it, get fucked BBC.
> It is also fair to speculate that Mr Adams calculated he had a better chance of winning with an Irish jury with little or no memory of the Troubles.
Imagine being so utterly thick to type that sentence out…
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