The High Court refused an application by Eoin McKeogh to restrict newspapers from naming him in reports of his defamation proceedings. Mr Justice Michael Peart ruled that the newspaper publishers were not covered by an earlier injunction against other defendants and that fair and accurate reporting of the case did not breach that order.
The application concerned reporting restrictions sought against six newspaper publishers. Mr McKeogh had asked the court to prohibit them from publishing or repeating material said to defame him, including content identifying him as the person who left a taxi without paying. Alternatively, he sought an order preventing reports that identified him as the subject of the allegation, and a declaration that the publishers were bound by and had breached an earlier order.
The dispute followed an incident in Monkstown on 13 November 2011, when a man left a taxi without paying. The taxi driver later posted footage on YouTube. A person using the pseudonym “Daithii4U” wrongly identified Mr McKeogh as the man in the video. Mr Peart said the video itself did not defame Mr McKeogh, but the false identification did.
The judge said Mr McKeogh was in Japan on the date of the taxi incident, citing his evidence and passport. The taxi driver had also confirmed in court that Mr McKeogh was not the fare evader and expressed regret. Mr Peart described the online abuse directed at Mr McKeogh as severe. He noted that an earlier interim order had led to a reported 95% removal of the material, but said compliance with that order was not at issue in this application.
Mr McKeogh argued that restrictions were needed to protect his privacy and good name and provide an effective remedy. The publishers submitted that they had reported public court proceedings fairly and accurately, were not intended targets of the earlier injunction, and had no duty to conceal his identity.
Mr Peart agreed with authorities that the administration of justice in public generally requires the identities of parties to be disclosed. He found the publishers were not parties to whom the earlier injunction was directed, and that their reporting of the proceedings was not a breach of it. He said newspapers could still face a separate claim if they published defamatory material, but fair and accurate reporting of a person’s defamation claim did not itself repeat the alleged defamation.
The court refused all relief sought in the motion, including the alternative request for a declaration. The ruling concerned the application against the newspapers; it did not determine the substantive defamation proceedings.