Kitty Holland was badly advised on story about the death of Savita Halappanavar, John Waters tells defamation case

John Waters described Kitty Holland in court yesterday as a very good reporter who had received poor leadership and been badly advised by her then-editor at the Irish Times, Kevin O’Sullivan.

Mr Waters made the remarks in relation to a report about the untimely death of Indian woman Savita Halappanavar at University Hospital Galway.

He told his counsel, Feargal Kavanagh SC, he found it baffling to hear Ms O’Sullivan state, in video evidence, that 12 years after he published Ms Holland’s story he felt he and the Irish Times had been vindicated in breaking what they knew about the tragic event at the time.

Mr Waters, of Sandycove, Dublin, was giving evidence in his defence against a €75,000 defamation-of-character claim by Ms Holland, of Ranelagh, Dublin.

She alleges that although Mr Waters did not specifically name her, he had accused her in a speech to a Renua conference as having lied in her report. She further alleges that he was referring to her when mentioning the “journalist who started the lie”.

Mr Waters – a journalist and former columnist with the Irish Times – has denied all of Ms Holland’s claims.

Mr O’Sullivan said he never had any concern about the veracity of Ms Holland’s original article. He added that the newspaper had never been asked to print any clarification or correction.

“It was one of the biggest stories in my 10-year term as editor and is up there with one of the most important we have published,” he told Andrew Walker SC, who appeared with barrister Shane English and Lavelle Solicitors for Ms Holland.

Mr Waters said Ms Holland had been put into doing something that, with a little bit of good counsel, advice and reflection, would have been avoided.

He felt the Irish Times feared they would have missed their scoop and had become impatient and had gone off at half-cock.

“If I had been editor of the Irish Times, I would have set two or three reporters loose in Galway for several days to find and interview contacts in the hospital,” Mr Waters told Mr Kavanagh, who ­appeared with barristers Conor Rubalcava and Greg Murphy and solicitor Brendan Maloney.

He said that although the editor, deputy editors, news editor, and at least one solicitor, later joined by the chief sub-editor, had joined Ms Holland to discuss the story, there had been a misdirection of the writer.

Mr Waters said most of Ms Holland’s article had been based on an interview with Ms Halappanavar’s husband and, although recorded, had not included certain statements made by him.

He said there had been no evidence in the story that a consultant had said he could not terminate her pregnancy while there was a foetal heartbeat and because Ireland was a Catholic country.

It transpired that the midwife had stated this and Ms Halappanavar had said: “I am neither Irish or Catholic.”

Mr Waters told Mr Kavanagh he would have had no argument with the Irish Times headline on the story if it had been prefaced with the words “Husband states”.

In earlier evidence, Mr Waters said when he first read Ms Holland’s report under the headline “Woman, denied termination, died in hospital”, he felt it was being used to take the newspaper “over the line” in the discussion leading up to the Eighth Amendment referendum.

He said the words spoken in his address to Renua members were not aimed at Ms Holland. The case continues today.

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