In a significant libel case, journalist Kitty Holland has emerged victorious against anti-abortion campaigner and fellow journalist, John Waters, receiving €35,000 damages. The Circuit Court Judge, John O’Connor described Holland, the Social Affairs Correspondent, as a highly regarded and ethical journalist. Drawing attention to the weight of a prominent writer and commentator implying that she had been dishonest in a report, the Judge highlighted the serious impact on her professional reputation.
The defamation, according to Judge O’Connor, not only launched a severe assault on Holland’s journalistic integrity but inflicted substantial emotional distress onto her. Waters had attempted to justify his comments by claiming they were opinion-based and pertinent to public matters, however, he failed to substantiate his remarks with factual evidence.
The lawsuit revolved around Waters’ statements prior to the 2018 abortion referendum, which referred to a report Holland wrote in 2012, on the hospitalisation and subsequent death of Savita Halappanavar. Halappanavar had been in the midst of a miscarriage when she was admitted to the hospital.
During a Renua political party assembly in 2017, Waters dismissed the possibility of a mother dying due to lack of proper medical treatment relating to abortion. Citing Savita Halappanavar’s case, Waters accused Holland of birthing and propagating a falsified account that won her several professional awards. He insisted that his statements were intended to critique the report, not Holland personally, against whom he bore no animosity.
Nevertheless, Judge O’Connor highlighted that Waters’ comments gave an impression that Holland had deliberately twisted one of Ireland’s most significant news stories of the past decade to her advantage. The judge found no trace of bias in Holland’s reporting and affirmed that her report was not tainted by grave errors and omissions that could qualify as a lie.
Waters, in his remarks, was “indifferent and irresponsible towards Holland’s standing for political scoring,” the judge pointed out. In his assessment, he granted a sum of €35,000 as general damages and emphasized the widely acknowledged respect for Holland’s journalistic credibility among her colleagues, a statement echoed by the court today. A hearing to deliberate on the legal costs will be scheduled by the judge later this month. Both parties had legal representation ranging from solicitors to senior legal advisers during the hearing. Holland attended the court session to listen to the judgement, though Waters wasn’t present.