Newspaper wins landmark appeal
A daily newspaper has won a landmark appeal which overturned the awarding of £25,000 to the owner of a pizza restaurant in west Belfast over a critical review.
Ciaran Convery, who runs Goodfellas pizza restaurant on Kennedy Way, sued the Irish News for libel over a highly critical review of his premises published nearly eight years ago.
The newspaper consequently appealed, and claimed that what had been said about the restaurant had been fair comment.
But the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal ruled that the jury which decided the restaurant had been defamed had been misdirected by the trial judge.
The Northern Ireland Lord Chief Justice, Sir Brian Kerr, ordered a retrial.
He said that although he thought a properly directed jury would have found in favour of the Irish News in Belfast he could not be certain.
Fighting the appeal on behalf of the Irish News was Lord Lester QC, who said it would be "perfectly ludicrous" if libel proceedings could be issued every time a critic wrote a bad review.
The judgement will have far reaching implications for critics all over the world.
Ciaran Convery must now decide if he wishes to pursue the case further.
As he left court earlier he gave no indication as to whether he would be following this course of action, only saying 'no comment'.
But Irish News editor Noel Doran admitted he was thrilled with the judge's ruling.
"We are delighted. It is a great victory for the Irish News. We came here to prove a point of principle and we have been vindicated," he said, describing the original verdict as perverse.
He also said that he would fight Mr Convery if he wanted to take the case back to court.
He said that the judgment sent out a strong message that newspapers were entitled to publish fair and accurate reviews.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Belfast
Sunday 12 February 2012
Today
Fog
Temperature: 4 C to 8 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 4 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: North west
