ODonoghue and the Sunday World

The Press Ombudsman has decided to uphold a complaint made on behalf of Mr Wayne O’Donoghue that an article in the Sunday World was in breach of Principle 5 of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Periodicals because it failed to respect his right to privacy.

The article, on 17 January 2010, re-published information from the public record about Mr O’Donoghue’s trial five years ago in the context of a forthcoming television documentary on the case. However, it also revealed the location of the university in the UK being attended by Mr O’Donoghue, the course on which he was a student, and the first name of his girlfriend, as well as publishing six identifiable photographs of her.

While the re-publication of matter from the public record of the trial of the complainant is protected by the Code of Practice, the publication in this article of detailed and additional information about Mr O’Donoghue’s private life would require justification by the newspaper, either in the public interest or otherwise, if it were not to result in a breach of the complainant’s privacy under the Code.

In its response to the complaint, the newspaper pointed out that it had decided not to publish full details of the complainant’s UK residence or the name of his girlfriend. This in itself is not sufficient justification for any breach of the complainant’s privacy that the information contained in the article may have presented.

The newspaper also defended its publication of the information about the complainant on the grounds that the complainant had a criminal conviction for manslaughter and widespread publicity had surrounded that trial, because it believed there were significant and important questions that remained unanswered, and because it believed that the complainant should have been charged in relation to other matters.

This defence is not a sufficient justification for the publication of the private information concerned, as the information published has no relevance to, or bearing on, such matters. Neither is its publication justified in the public interest, which is defined in the Preamble to the Code of Practice as a matter capable of affecting the people at large so that they may legitimately be interested in receiving and the press legitimately interested in providing information about it.

The complaint about this aspect of the article under Principle 5 is therefore upheld.

Two other complaints under Principle 5 and Principle 3 were not upheld.

The newspaper said that photographs of Mr O’Donoghue published with the article were freely available on the internet, with no privacy claimed and no restriction on viewing. The free availability of these photographs on the internet was not contested by the complainant. In this respect there is no evidence that their publication breached Principle 5 of the Code of Practice.

A complaint about harassment under Principle 3.3 was not supported by any evidence that refuted the newspaper’s account of its reporter’s actions, which said that the journalist attempted to speak to Mr O’Donoghue on one occasion. It is therefore not upheld.

17 June 2010

The Sunday World appealed the decision of the Press Ombudsman to the Press Council of Ireland.