Kevin Winters obtains court order compelling X (Twitter) to reveal identity of account holder who allegedly defamed him

Kevin Winters issued proceedings against the company, formerly known as Twitter, in a bid to obtain information on who operated the now disbanded ‘Malachy O’ account.

The legal action relates to postings about retired Garda officers turned whistleblowers and others critical of the Irish police force.

Mr Winters claims the same anonymous account has also targeted his own legal practice. It was suggested that it may have been controlled by someone with links to members of An Garda Siochana.

The solicitor mounted an application at the High Court in Belfast for the social media platform, now owned by Elon Musk, to release data pointing to the identity of the account holder.

Under the order granted today, the company must provide any names, telephone numbers or email addresses associated with the account.

Details on its date of registration and Internet Protocol (IP) information are also to be disclosed to Mr Winter’s firm, KRW Law.

The confirmed that the disclosed information could be used by the ex-gardai clients he represents in potential libel actions over alleged offensive social media commentary.

“We hope the outworkings of this order will now allow our clients to issue defamation proceedings over derogatory postings made two years ago,” he said.

Mr Winters added: “Using anonymous social media accounts to mount reputational attacks is a coward's charter.

“In certain cases the courts can intervene to act as a bulwark against that happening. We are positive that will be the case here.”