The High Court has ordered Gemma O’Doherty to remove three videos about Beaumont Hospital and its director of nursing, Marie Murray, and barred her from republishing specified allegations while a defamation action proceeds to trial.
In a judgment delivered on 9 July 2021, Mr Justice Allen found that the videos were defamatory of the hospital and Ms Murray and that Ms O’Doherty had no defence reasonably likely to succeed. The application was an interlocutory one under section 33 of the Defamation Act 2009. The court assessed the evidence offered in support of Ms O’Doherty’s proposed defence of truth; it did not decide the underlying action at trial.
The videos, posted on 8, 10 and 11 June 2021, included claims that hospital staff were being forced to take COVID-19 vaccines, that Ms Murray had committed crimes against humanity, and that the hospital was a “death camp” and was administering lethal injections. Ms O’Doherty maintained that what she had said was true.
The hospital’s chief executive, Ian Carter, told the court that vaccination was voluntary and consent based, and that staff who declined vaccination were subject to risk assessment. He said redeployment to lower-risk duties could be necessary under HSE guidance, as an interim protective measure, and that no staff member had been demoted, harassed or stalked. The hospital also said it continued to provide emergency and elective services.
Ms O’Doherty relied in part on accounts from healthcare workers she had interviewed. The judge said those accounts could support evidence that some staff opposed vaccination and preferred to remain in frontline roles. But the material described staff being offered vaccination, assessed for risk and told that alternative duties might be required; it did not support the claim that anyone had been forced to take a vaccine. The court also found no evidence that staff had been given vaccines without consent.
The judge said the hospital’s promotion of vaccination and reassignment of unvaccinated staff in line with HSE guidance could not fairly be described as harassment, stalking, drug pushing or demotion. He acknowledged Ms O’Doherty’s entitlement to express her views on vaccine safety, while finding that her evidence did not provide a reasonable basis for the factual allegations against the plaintiffs.
The court ordered removal of the videos and restrained republication of the specific defamatory statements pleaded about the hospital and Ms Murray. It declined a broader request to prevent publication of any material about either plaintiff. The order is interlocutory, operates pending trial, and was made on the plaintiffs’ undertaking as to damages. Costs were left for written submissions, with the substantive order to be drawn up immediately.