Gerry Adams v the BBC: <\/b>Three key moments that may have won former Sinn F\u00e9in president\u2019s libel case<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Mr Adams denies ever being in the IRA and said on the stand that it was \u201cnot a path that I took\u201d.<\/p>\n The Spotlight programme, aired in September 2016, included a claim from an anonymous source referred to as \u201cMartin\u201d that the shooting of Denis Donaldson in 2006 was sanctioned by the IRA leadership and that Mr Adams \u201cgives the final say\u201d.<\/p>\n Mr Donaldson was killed in Co Donegal months after admitting his role as a police and MI5 agent.<\/p>\n The BBC argued that airing allegations responsibly was a central tenet of journalism.<\/p>\n It stressed that it was an allegation that was made, and not a statement of fact, that Mr Adams had sanctioned and approved the killing.<\/p>\n The broadcaster said that after the allegation, they aired Mr Adams\u2019 denial, the claim of responsibility by the Real IRA and the progress of the Garda investigation.<\/p>\n BBC barrister Paul Gallagher SC said the case was taken by Mr Adams on the misunderstanding that the allegation was only based on one source.<\/p>\n Spotlight reporter Jennifer O\u2019Leary gave evidence that the allegation was corroborated by five other sources.<\/p>\n She said she was on the road for months after the source \u201cMartin\u201d made the allegation in a recorded interview in April 2016, and held 60 different meetings with sources in the months after.<\/p>\n Ms O\u2019Leary said she took \u201ccare\u201d and was \u201cresponsible\u201d with the allegation and said she wanted to be \u201cfair\u201d to Mr Adams by being selective in who she asked to corroborate the allegation.<\/p>\n During the court case in Dublin\u2019s High Court, she said she wanted to be \u201cfair\u201d to Mr Adams, by putting the allegation to sources with experience in the IRA or who had access to intelligence at the time of Mr Donaldson\u2019s killing.<\/p>\n She said that she wanted to put it to people who had been reliable sources before and said because of this, she did not include one particular garda source as corroboration because she had not used them before.<\/p>\n Ms O\u2019Leary said she took the \u201cutmost care\u201d with the allegation and denied leaving out pieces of information from the programme that would contradict the claim against Mr Adams.<\/p>\n BBC Spotlight editor Gwyneth Jones gave evidence that they did not treat the claim like a \u201cbig sensationalist expose\u201d and said the tone was \u201cmeasured\u201d and the language \u201cprecise\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was so much care taken over this programme. It was a solid piece of journalism and the result of many months work and a lot of diligence and a lot of rigour and a lot of scrutiny,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In his closing statement, Mr Gallagher told the jury that Mr Adams could not say his reputation had been harmed by the programme if his reputation was of being a member of an organisation that \u201cheld this country and the north as a hostage for three decades\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAre we to say nothing about that? Mr Adams would like us to say nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The BBC Spotlight team argued it took \u201ccare\u201d in broadcasting an allegation that Gerry Adams sanctioned the killing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[192,62137,39680,22306,15458,1144,62138,13136,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-143954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-bbc-spotlight","10":"tag-gerry-adams","11":"tag-ira","12":"tag-irish","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-real-ira","15":"tag-republic-of-ireland","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114596512115183828","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/1748603890_147_3JMA2N57PJHNXGVI722KEUAXJI.jpeg\")
<\/a>![\"Daughter](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/OV7QBIS3VRFS3DEQZM3K7JVIPA.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Journalist](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ASIY2V3CKFNVFCAOY46ZP2VWIM.jpg\")
Journalist Jennifer O\u2019Leary at the High Court in Dublin (Niall Carson\/PA) <\/p>\n![\"Spotlight](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/UEV2X2EPTJLQVE33WNS7NTSLZU.jpg\")
Spotlight editor Gwyneth Jones outside the High Court in Dublin (Brian Lawless\/PA) <\/p>\n