'Viper' loses High Court injunction
The High Court today refused to bar a Sunday newspaper from printing articles on notorious Dublin criminal Martin “The Viper” Foley.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly ruled there was little value in granting an injunction on the Sunday World when stories of the Viper’s drug dealing were in the public domain for a number of years.
Foley had sought a High Court injunction against the newspaper on grounds that a number of articles by crime journalist Paul Williams had breached his human rights.
He claimed the Sunday World had published sensationalist articles about him and accused him of being a garda informer which posed a real and serious threat to his life.
Extracts from Williams’s sensational Crimelords book were published by the paper detailing The Viper’s criminal exploits.
But the judge ruled the paper had not tried to harm or endanger the life of Foley – who has more than 45 criminal convictions and has survived three assassination attempts in recent years.
Mr Justice Kelly said: “The information in question is in the public domain and the bringing of this action with its attendant publicity has given it a much wider circulation. An injunction restraining this defendant (Sunday World) from repeating it would have little value.
“Accordingly the application for injunctive relief is refused.”
Foley has a right to bring the case to trial within the next six months to seek a permanent injunction, the court heard.
Williams said the rulings vindicated his, and the paper’s decision to publish stories about The Viper, a significant player in the organised criminal underworld in the capital.
“We never at any stage – and we were totally exonerated in this by the judge - we never at any stage intended endangering anybody’s life,” the journalist said.
“It was actually farcical to say that was what we were about.
“We are newspaper people, we are telling the news, we’re telling the public what’s going on. People don’t like it and they try to use various means both intimidation and then legal to shut us up.
“This has been a good day for all of us here.”
Mr Justice Kelly, however, said the newspaper was entitled to publish facts and opinions about him that arose from his involvement in criminal activities.
Foley, who has served jail terms for robbery and other offences, was a close associate of “The General”, Martin Cahill.
He was awarded IR£120,000 (€152,000) in 2000 after he was shot in the back and finger in a gangland attack.
The article, headlined “Foley’s a dead man walking”, with the sub heading “Viper not trusted by other gang members” was published on December 5, last year as part of extracts from the updated version of Williams’ Crimelords.
The article stated that reliable sources believed Mr Foley was protected by a senior member of Garda Siochana and that he had astonishingly avoided three major drug busts by leaving the scene minutes beforehand.
The court heard that Foley sought the order to prevent any further articles about him in the Sunday World because, as a convicted criminal, his chance of successfully taking a defamation case were slim.
An affidavit handed to the court at an earlier sitting stated that Foley was a person who orchestrated and dealt in terror and violence. Any threat on his life was linked to his continuing involvement in crime rather than the article published in the Sunday World, it stated.
Williams, had been subjected to a campaign of intimidation which garda sources believed was being conducted by Foley, the court also heard.
A hoax bomb was planted under his car outside his home in November 2003 and he, his family and 150 neighbours had to be evacuated while the Army carried out a controlled explosion on the device.
Williams is now under 24-hour garda protection.
The case is due to come before the High Court again on March 14, to discuss the possibility of a full hearing over the granting of an injunction.
