Costs have been awarded today against journalist John Waters in the defamation case taken against him by Irish Times journalist Kitty Holland. Waters has ten days from today to make a decision whether to appeal the judgement against him.
Last week in the Circuit Civil Court Judge John O’Connor awarded Holland €35,000 in damages in his ruling against John Waters . The question of her legal costs was dealt with in court earlier today and could run to multiples of the cost of damages.
The 126 page ruling of Judge John O’Connor (a brother of Mayo Coroner Pat O’Connor, with whom readers of this Substack will be familiar) was published by the courts service yesterday and is available to read here.
On reading the detail of the published Circuit Court ruling, this Substack is hopeful that Waters will appeal.
Here’s why:
Despite the cost to his health, reputation and finances, Waters has an opportunity to revisit key facts that appear to have been circumnavigated in Judge John O’Connor’s summation of this monumental case. Central to the argument of this defamation case, is bias. Judge O’Connor himself sets out the meaning of bias in his ruling, wherein he includes the line ‘omission of facts.’
For readers unfamiliar, this case is centred on a news story published on the front page of the Irish Times in November 2012.
Savita Halappanavar, a 31- year-old dentist originally from India and working in Galway, was hospitalised suffering a miscarriage on Sunday Oct 21st 2012.
She died tragically one week later on the 28th October 2012 in University Hospital Galway (UHG).
The cause of death established by Coroner Dr Ciaran McLaughlin (following an inquest into her death in April 2013) was:
“1(a) Fulminant septic shock from E. coli bacteraemia.
1(b) Ascending genital tract sepsis.
1(c) Miscarriage at 17 weeks gestation associated with chorioamnionitis.
(2) There were no co-morbidities.”
The story became a key catalyst in the campaign to introduce abortion in Ireland in a referendum six years later. The problem is, the inference arising from the headline “Woman ‘denied a termination’ dies in hospital” is not entirely true. At no point, in any follow-up report, inquest or investigation, has it been found that Ms Halappanavar would have survived had a termination taken place earlier in her treatment.
“It was a story subsequently taken up very quickly as a major news story with both Irish and international news outlets. Within a day, it became the mostviewed news story in the history of the Irish Times website. Praveen spoke to RTE on the News at One programme from India that afternoon. There were meetings and protests held in Ireland and in other countries over the circumstances of Savita’s death, and also concerning Ireland’s then restrictive abortion laws,” the Judge’s ruling states.
The law in place at the time of her death allowed for a termination if the mother’s health was at risk. Judge O’Connor explicitly states this in his ruling (July 3 2024.)
“It is not the function of this case to comment on these referenda cases and outcomes except to say that in so far as Savita’s care in UHG was concerned, the law on termination of pregnancy was as outlined in the 8th Amendment. That position was that if the mother’s life was in danger, the pregnancy could be terminated but not otherwise, such as for example the ill health or distress of the mother.”
“Essentially, Savita died from multi-organ failure from septic shock and E. coli four days after she delivered a deceased foetus. According to Dr Peter Boylan’s medical report handed into court (page 18): “From the early hours of October 24th, Ms Halappanavar developed sepsis, severe sepsis, and septic shock in rapid sequence. She developed an overwhelming infection and despite the best efforts of intensive care specialists she, unfortunately, died on Sunday October 28th 2012.”
“The jury of the coroner’s inquest into Savita’s death reached a unanimous verdict of death by 'medical misadventure'. It is accepted by the parties that Savita’s tragic death had a devastating effect on her husband, Praveen Halappanavar, and her family, and that there were substantial deficiencies in her medical care.”
The timing of the diagnosis of sepsis, which occurred – according to Dr Peter Boylan’s report – on October 24, is key to the sequence of events that lead John Waters to declare this story, published under the by-lines of Kitty Holland and Paul Cullen – as ‘the beginning of the lie.’
Readers of this Substack will know this author holds a pro-life position. I state this position in answer to Judge O’Connor’s comments on journalistic bias.
Here is the Judge’s summation of bias directly quoted from his ruling of July 3rd in the case of Holland -v- Waters.
“According to the Oxford Dictionary, “a bias” is “a predisposition or prejudice.” The facts are distorted. Journalists influence people’s behaviour and attitudes about various issues. Bias can come in the form of a commercial owner or editor disproportionately exerting influence or otherwise. A biased journalist implies the contravention of journalistic standards in terms of ethics and integrity. In contrast a biased media connotes widespread media distortion. Unbiased political media coverage is important in a healthy liberal democracy.
“Individually, we all have inherent biases, whether based on our upbringing or life experiences. The way to deal with a perceived biases is to disclose them and to abide by our professional ethical standards; however, most of all, it is our own ethical standards that define us.
“There is also another type of bias which is also an assault on a liberal democracy. It does this by stigmatization of individual journalists and by stereotyping them. The aim is to shatter their credibility and is an assault on their authority as a journalist. The aim is to stop journalists reporting or at least undermine their reporting. In this case, both plaintiff and defendant would contend that they have been subject to journalistic stigmatisation.”
In his ruling, Judge O’Connor sets out the meaning of a lie as follows:
“According to the Oxford Dictionary, “a lie" is “an intentionally false statement. Therefore, to tell a lie is to tell an untruth and deliberately mislead a person.” The nature of journalistic work is that they have to decide what is true, and what is relevant. Therefore, to call a journalist “a liar” is a serious accusation which goes to their professionalism as a journalist. Journalists need to know how to present information. Accuracy in facts are essential but they also need to know when they are expressing facts as opposed to expressing an opinion.
“This doesn’t mean that journalists have to always present two different sides in a fact based article. Indeed, to do so could distort the facts. What they do need to do is to not make up facts and also not to omit relevant facts.”
This is all true and relevant, in particular, the last five words : ‘not to omit relevant facts.’
I have written on the subject of the 2012 Irish Times article in question previously in this article published November 2023.
As a freelancer working for the Irish Times at the time, I was fully aware of the existence of media bias against the pro-life position. That bias stretches across mainstream Irish media, it is not confined to the Irish Times.
It was immediately clear to me that there were serious issues relating to the headline and the contents of the article itself, due to the omission of relevant facts. Nowhere in the article is it stated that Savita Halappanavar died as a result of not receiving a termination, as per the inference of the headline. Nowhere in the article is it stated, the Praveen Halappanavar, the grieving husband who had at this point, had lost his beloved wife and much cherished unborn baby just over two weeks earlier, was the sole source of crucial information presented as fact in the article. Nowhere in the article is it stated, that Ms Halappanavar was entitled, under the Eighth Amendment, to receive a termination in circumstances in which her life was at risk. Therefore - to this reader at least – it was clear there was something else at play. I have outlined that ‘something else’ previously as obfuscation, which may or may not have been deliberate, depending, one might suppose, on the inherent bias of the writers’ and editors’ responsible for the Irish Times’ story and the information available to them at the time of publication.
In the days and weeks following publication of the Savita Halappanavar story on the front page of the Irish Times, subsequent interviews by Praveen Halappanavar, Kitty Holland and the emergence of evidence that this story originated in a tip off from a Galway based pro-choice group, confirmed to me that the story was problematic.
The subsequent inquest, HSE and HIQA reports all confirm that Ms Halappanavar died due to deficiencies in Ms Halappanavar’s care.
It is for this reason that I find Kitty Holland’s decision to take this case most unusual. It leaves her reporting and the defence of it by editor Kevin O’Sullivan wide open to exhaustive dissection.
The following is a list of the witnesses for the plaintiff as described in the ruling:
(i)Kitty Holland, Irish Times reporter.
(ii)Dr Peter Boylan is ‘a retired consultant obstetrician/gynaecologist and former Master of the National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street, Dublin. He was an ‘expert witness’ at the Savita Halappanavar inquest held in 2013.’
(*Dr Boylan is a long time pro-choice advocate, something the Judge’s ruling does not mention.)
(iii) Justine McCarthy is ‘an established journalist, columnist and political correspondent for many years with the Sunday Times and currently a columnist with the Irish Times. She is an author and frequent broadcaster.’
(iv) Kevin O'Sullivan is ‘currently the Environment and Science Editor of the Irish Times. He was editor of The Irish Times between 2011-2017.’
The witness who gave evidence for the defendant:
(i) John Waters, the defendant
For clarity, here is Dr Boylan’s evidence on the critical timing of the onset of sepsis - again this is from the details available from the court ruling:
“Her life was not in danger until the early hours of Wednesday morning. At lunchtime on Wednesday, Dr Astbury was made aware of how sick she was. Dr Astbury needed to get a second opinion. Dr Astbury called into the operating theatre to collect an ultrasound scanner to check whether the foetal heart was present. She did the scan around about 2pm and there was no foetal heartbeat. So, termination of pregnancy was no longer an issue. She was extremely ill. There was no room in intensive care. They interrupted the operating theatre list to administer drugs to her to try and save her life. They were planning to achieve the delivery by the administration of a drug which would cause the uterus to contract. But Savita miscarried.”
“The exact timing of when someone goes from infection to sepsis is a continuum. Septic shock is where a woman is septic, blood pressure is very low and is not responding to medication.”
It is clear from this evidence that staff at UHG should have been watching Ms Halappanavar closely for any deterioration in her condition, since upon admission she had been examined internally and her cervix was found to be fully dilated.
Under cross examination by Senior Counsel for John Waters, Fergal Kavanagh (one of the issues with the published report of Judge O’Connor’s ruling is that it is not entirely complete, so we do not know what question was asked) Dr Boylan offers the following answer:
“One of the problems was that she developed her sepsis very rapidly. It can come on very fast and be so fast that you lose the patient. And once a woman goes into septic shock, the mortality rate is quite high.”
Here is the evidence from Praveen Halappanavar as presented by Judge O’Connor in his ruling. It appears to be at odds with Dr Boylan’s evidence, informing that his wife became seriously ill on the Tuesday.
“Speaking from Belgaum in the Karnataka region of southwest India, Mr Halappanavar said an internal examination was performed when she first presented. “The doctor told us the cervix was fully dilated, amniotic fluid was leaking and unfortunately the baby wouldn’t survive.” The doctor, he says, said it should be over in a few hours. There followed three days, he says, of the foetal heartbeat being checked several times a day.
“Savita was really in agony. She was very upset, but she accepted she was losing the baby. When the consultant came on the ward rounds on Monday morning Savita asked if they could not save the baby could they induce to end the pregnancy. The consultant said, ‘As long as there is a foetal heartbeat we can’t do anything’.
“Again on Tuesday morning, the ward rounds and the same discussion. The consultant said it was the law, that this is a Catholic country. Savita [a Hindu] said: ‘I am neither Irish nor Catholic’ but they said there was nothing they could do.’ That evening she developed shakes and shivering and she was vomiting. She went to use the toilet and she collapsed. There were big alarms and a doctor took bloods and started her on antibiotics.”
There is confusion from Ms Halappanavar’s parents also, who state that they visited their daughter in Ireland for three months in 2012, returning to India on October 23 after saying goodbye to her at the airport.
“We visited Ireland for 90 days in 2012 and returned to India on October 23,” they are quoted as saying in this report, published on May 29 2018. But Ms Halappanavar had been admitted to hospital on October 21.
The Judge states that ‘it is not the function of this judgment to comment on the various reports or any issues concerning the report’s findings/conclusions except in so far as it is necessary as to give context to this case.’ However, for the purpose of meeting the standards of his own description of bias, the Judge must surely take into account the reports that followed, because these set out the facts that were omitted from the initial article.
In outlining his judgement findings against John Waters, Mr O’Connor described the defamation as such:
“The defamation was careless and reckless of the plaintiff’s reputation in order to make a political point.”
Of Kitty Holland, he states the following:
“The plaintiff is a much respected and ethical journalist with the Irish Times. This was the most important story of her career to-date. She was awarded Journalist of the Year by her peers in 2013. To suggest that she was deceitful with the story by a fellow respected and well-known writer and commentator is consequential. The most important issue for the plaintiff from her evidence is respect for her integrity as a journalist.”
A problem arises here however, in what could be construed as Holland’s questionable journalistic ethics, by her own admission. Holland was a guest on the BBC’s The View with presenter Mark Carruthers, to discuss the Dublin Riots, the ‘far right’ and the murder of Ashling Murphy on Nonvember 30th 2023.
Holland appears to explain away the omission of key facts from a story based on the fact they were ‘not helpful.’ Not helpful to what exactly?
In contrast to her direct reportage of the Savita Halappanavar story based solely on the evidence of her grieving husband, Holland appears to contradict herself in her analysis of the case of school teacher Aisling Murphy (23) by Slovak national Jozef Puska, by calling Murphy’s boyfriend Ryan Casey’s judgement into question, based on the extent of his loss and resulting emotional state.
In the video interview, Presenter Mark Carruthers read out a quote from the victim impact statement of Ryan Casey’s, the late Ashling Murphy’s boyfriend :
“We have to once and for all start putting the safety of not only Irish people but everybody in this country who works hard, pays taxes, raises families and overall contributes to society, first.”
“Those were very interesting comments weren’t they?” Carruthers said to Holland.
“Yeah I mean I think elements of them were not good frankly, I think they were incitement to hatred and I think that’s why the media left out aspects of them. This was an extremely heartbroken and devastated young man who has lost the partner of his life but the race and nationality of that man who perpetrated that awful violence on Ashling and murdered her is irrelevant.
“I can understand in the emotion and him feeling that and he is entitled to his views but I think the media has a responsibility to not report views that are incitement to hatred and he is being held up as a hero of the far right now.”
“Was it the right thing for media to overlook them in those circumstances? Was it an embarrassed overlooking of those comments do you think?” the presenter asked.
“I don’t think so, I think they were right to not include them. I don’t think that they were helpful. It’s the kind of thing, you know, that the far right latches onto, they latched onto the nationality of the man who attacked the children and you know, I’d love them to go down to the courts and report on all the white Irish men who are perpetrating violence on Irish and immigrant women, every day in the courts, they are not doing that. The problem here is violence against women and children its not the nationality of the people who are perpetrating it. The problem is misogyny and hatred and entitlement to inflict violence on women and children. It’s another related issue and ill in society but it has nothing to do with race,” Holland said.
How then, could she, or the news editors working on the story, print a front page article that ultimately shaped the future of Ireland’s abortion laws, based solely on information relayed by Mr Halappanavar, in good faith?
On Day 3 of the Holland -v- Waters trial, on the 29th April 2024, Kevin O’Sullivan, former Editor of the Irish Times – answered the following questions from Senior Counsel for the defendant, Fergal Kavanagh.
“Did you ever have any information that told you the sequence of the events, independent of Praveen?
A: We had multiple inquiries with a large number of people trying to piece together what had happened, we were not over relying on the testimony of Praveen, we found and verified attentional details that stood up to the story.
A: Well it is fair to say that Praveen at that point had supplied most of the detail. The statement is there from the hospital, we quoted from the post-mortem.
Q: But it is not supporting of the sequence of the events, critical is when she was diagnosed with a serious infection.
A: That was one of the issues, there was a complex medical issue surrounding the story.
Q: Savita was clearly very unwell, and it is fair to say that the HSE inquiry established that there was preoccupation about the foetus at that point instead of the health of Savita that was deteriorating at a rapid rate.
A: In my view it was clear that the nursing staff and medical staff were constrained by aspects of the 8th Amendment [Irish Constitution] and that introduced a delay in treatment which contributed to her death. My view is that Savita was in a very seriously ill condition and the various inquiries would confirm that.
Q: By the time she was in a serious condition, a decision was made to terminate the pregnancy, do you accept that?
A: Yes.”
The former news editor clearly states that at the time of publication it was ‘his view’ that nursing staff and medical staff were constrained by aspects of the 8th Amendment and that introduced a delay in treatment which contributed to her death.
Is this not clear evidence of bias?
Ms Halappanavar died due to medical misadventure after developing sepsis. When her husband took legal action, he sued the HSE and his deceased wife’s obstetrician. An inquest into the pregnant woman’s death returned a verdict of medical misadventure.
The Irish Examiner published this report (quoted below) in September 2013 and in March 2016 the case was settled out of court with a six figure sum paid out to her husband, Praveen Halappanavar.
“A separate inquiry found medics in the Galway hospital missed an early opportunity to terminate her pregnancy on health grounds and unacceptable clinical practice.”
This Substack holds the view that the real cost in this case are the lives of 36,000 aborted babies and counting.
Over 10,000 abortions took place in Ireland in 2023, latest figures from the Department of Health show. It is the highest ever number of annual abortions performed in the State.
The figures reveal a 250% increase in abortions since the law changed in January 2019. Based on the these figures, one in six babies lives now ends in abortion in Ireland.
Crucially for the voting public, many of whom responding out of compassion to the events surrounding the death of Savita Halappanavar, just 21 of the 10,033 abortions that took place in Ireland last year were carried out due to a risk to life or health under the grounds set out in Section 9 of the Act.
Seven of the 10,033 abortions were due to a risk to life or health in an emergency situation under Section 10.
A total of 129 of the 10,033 abortions were due to a fatal fetal anomaly under Section 11.
The remaining 9,876 abortions took place in early pregnancy under the grounds set out in Section 12 of the Act, a pregnancy that has not exceeded 12 weeks - effectively, abortion on demand.
These figures confirm a grotesque distortion of how the 2018 referendum was presented to the Irish voting public.
The cost to John Waters of this defamation case has been and will be substantial.
But what judge can put a price on the cost to humanity?
Louise, this case is vitally important, and this article is timely and necessary. Congratulations on your forensic presentation of the facts. You probably have seen Aisling's article on the disparity on the way Enoch Burke has been treated by Irish Courts compared to Kitty. (She is of course is allegedly Eamon Mc Cann of PBP's biological daughter-the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as we say. This must go to appeal. John should seriously consider presenting himself in court instead of feeding the legal beast system-I know people who can help.
This is journalism. Fantastically detailed breakdown Louise, well done, will share out on all platforms. Thanks.
Louise, this case is vitally important, and this article is timely and necessary. Congratulations on your forensic presentation of the facts. You probably have seen Aisling's article on the disparity on the way Enoch Burke has been treated by Irish Courts compared to Kitty. (She is of course is allegedly Eamon Mc Cann of PBP's biological daughter-the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as we say. This must go to appeal. John should seriously consider presenting himself in court instead of feeding the legal beast system-I know people who can help.