Censoring Ryan Casey
Kitty Holland, John Waters and the question of Bias
This morning Ryan Casey wakes up ‘finally free’ to use his voice again
“…For a society that listens to its people, free of gaslighting, blacklisting or censorship.”
Yesterday, following the settlement of his defamation case against the BBC he said,
“I hope this serves as a reminder to all media organisations of the high level of responsibility that comes with running such public platforms.”
I have yet to read anywhere, of the significance of a settlement in this defamation case, as oppose to a court hearing. The court scenario would have seen Kitty Holland sit in the witness box and defend the words she said about Ryan Casey on the BBC.
“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,” she said.
A public hearing would have seen Holland undergo cross examination from Casey’s legal team and defend media censorship of Casey’s victim impact statement.
Casey’s barrister, by the way, is Ronan Lupton SC, who represented Veronica Guerin’s brother Jimmy Guerin in his defamation case against Gemma O’Doherty.
“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,” Holland said of Casey’s impact statement following the sentencing of Josef Puska for the brutal murder of his girlfriend, Ashling Murphy.
Remember, Holland was specifically asked by the presenter of the BBC show The View, if the censorship of Casey’s statement was ‘the right thing.’
“Was it the right thing for media to overlook them in those circumstances? Was it an embarrassed overlooking of those comments do you think?” he asked.
Incredibly, Holland, (a journalist!) opted not just to defend the censorship, but to explain it by saying that crimes are committed (in Ireland!) by ‘white Irish men.’
“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.”
Would Kitty Holland have been able to suitably defend herself in front of a Judge in the High Court? I suspect not, which is why the case was settled out of court.
This is a great pity.
“This was never just about me, it was about truth, fairness, and decency,” Ryan Casey said of the defamation action.
The placing of Kitty Holland in the witness box would be hugely significant for Ireland and for, as Casey said ‘all victims who deserve to have their voices heard without such harsh criticism or judgment.’
That is because there is a hugely significant element to all this and that is - Kitty Holland’s journalistic reputation.
Readers will be aware that it was Kitty Holland who ‘broke’ the story of Savita Halappanavar with a front page story in the Irish Times in November 2012.
Her story paved the way for the legalisation of abortion in Ireland.
Following the Kitty Holland V John Waters defamation case at the Circuit Civil Court last summer, Waters had a ten-day window to decide whether to appeal. Judge John O’Connor had just awarded Holland €35,000 in damages.
This Substack trawled through the Judge’s 126-page ruling and found the case hinged on Kitty Holland’s journalistic reputation.
In an article published this week last year, I wrote the following:
“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.’”
Yesterday, Holland’s name was trending across social media networks due to her obvious bias as media outlets reported the Casey defamation settlement without naming her, including the report published by her place of work, the Irish Times.
In the article I published following the Holland v Waters case, I expressed my hope that Waters would appeal the Circuit Court ruling. I argued, that an appeal would bring Kitty Holland’s comments on the BBC into the courtroom - the same comments that resulted in an out of court settlement at the High Court yesterday.
“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.’”
Four weeks later after publication, it emerged Ryan Casey was taking a legal case against the BBC for defamation. The settlement of that action yesterday is a damning indictment of Kitty Holland’s journalistic reputation. It is something Judge John O’Connor could not have ignored had John Waters appealed the defamation case taken against him by Kitty Holland.
Ryan Casey’s defamation settlement yesterday caused consternation online over the consistent bias operating in Irish media on the issue of immigration, as Ryan Casey rightly set out in his victim impact statement.
But it is only indicative of an agenda operating much longer than many realise.
After the breaking of the Halappanavar story (sourced through Galway based pro-choice group), Kitty Holland defended Savita’s husband Praveen Halappanavar as a ‘credible witness,’ despite saying that his recollection of events, the timeline and days ‘may be a little muddied.’
In the wake of that front page story, Kitty Holland said that the article she wrote, the story that brought about the introduction of abortion in Ireland never suggested ‘that a termination of pregnancy might have saved Ms Halappanavar’s life.’
This is all quite incredible and sadly, devastating because while Holland’s bias may not allow her to see the truth, the fact is that her report eventually lead to the legalisation of the killing of Irish babies by referendum in 2018.
The truth is that every single one of the 50,000 babies destroyed in Ireland since, had all the potential in the world, to become what Ashling Murphy was to Ryan Casey, the love of somebody’s life.
*
Rally for Life takes place in Dublin tomorrow (Sat) July 5th, Parnell Square at 1.30pm.
Read the Kitty Holland v John Waters article:
A Miscarriage of Justice?
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.
Thank you, Louise, for being a credit to true journalism, factual, objective, and committed to the truth borne out by the true facts.
Truth matters. Journalistic integrity matters. Despite no mention of KHs name in reports, we all know. She's finished as far as most people are concerned. Reputation in tatters.