Gerry Adams bet big, won big. What does the libel victory over the BBC mean for his legacy?
Gerry Adams
gambled big and
won big
.
Not quite as big as he wanted but big. He was seeking more than €200,000 in damages but €100,000 is a statement he will feel vindicates his reputation.
'Peacemaker' or 'peacetaker'?
That was the question the Dublin jury had to decide about Adams in his
libel case
against the
BBC
. Mr Justice Alexander Owens may have framed the questions differently, but that is what it boiled down to.
READ MORE
In the end, the jury saw peace processor above paramilitary in a man who has always denied ever being a member of the
Provisional IRA
.
Days before the jury retired to consider its judgment, one senior Belfast lawyer said he felt it was 'complete lunacy' that the former
Sinn Féin
president took such a case.
'He is taking a huge risk,' he believed.
Most of the audience for the BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight programme that carried the allegation that Adams sanctioned the murder of Denis Donaldson was in the
North
but the King's Counsel (KC) wasn't surprised that Adams's legal team pursued the claim for defamation in Dublin's
High Court
because it would have been a much bigger risk taking the case in the North.
And then the KC began to reconsider. But this was a Southern jury with a different experience and perhaps a different perspective.
The predominantly younger age profile of the jury – aged 25 to 35 – suggests that they may have had no real contemporaneous memory of the death, misery and horror the IRA inflicted with Adams, allegedly, as one of its senior leaders.
The same lawyer, reflecting a bit more, then took note of how among Adams's legal team was Paul Tweed, solicitor to international film and rock stars and celebrities. He has represented the likes of Hollywood stars Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson and singers Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears, and is viewed as one of the most feared defamation lawyers in the business.
'Paul Tweed wouldn't have taken this case on unless he thought he had a reasonable crack at winning it,' mused the KC, having second thoughts.
And so it proved. Adams bet the house and grabbed the pot.
Writer and broadcaster Malachi O'Doherty, author of an unauthorised biography of Adams, said this victory would satisfy Adams's large ego and vanity.
[
Book review: Gerry Adams – An Unauthorised Life by Malachi O'Doherty
Opens in new window
]
'He will feel morally vindicated by the result. He will feel good about himself,' he said.
O'Doherty, who last year had a libel case brought against him by Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly
thrown out by the High Court as 'scandalous, frivolous and vexatious'
, also suspected that it 'would inject confidence back into the whole Sinn Féin strategy of using the defamation laws' against the media.
Entering Adams's twilight zone
Gerry Adams outside Dublin's High Court on May 21st. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
When dealing with Adams, there is often that sense of entering a twilight zone where truth and reality are blurred. He took the libel case against the BBC because, as he said, the Spotlight current affairs programme broadcast a lie in alleging he sanctioned the murder of Denis Donaldson.
Yet, in giving his evidence he swore an oath that he would tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And soon into his cross-examination we were back into his again denying that he was in the IRA or that for many years he served on its ruling army council.
Whatever about south of the Border, there is hardly a person in Belfast, or indeed in Northern Ireland – or indeed any republican living on or off the Falls Road who lends credence to that claim.
For Sinn Féin and IRA supporters generally, they just shrug their shoulders and say that if Adams feels that his denial of IRA membership is something he must persist with, then so be it.
'Gerry knows best,' tends to be the response of the faithful.
Some regular challenges to his claim he was never in the IRA were raised by counsel for the BBC. They include how in 1972 he was released from internment so he could be part of a delegation flown to London to discuss with senior British government representatives how to end the IRA campaign of violence. As usual, he said he was in London representing the Sinn Féin leadership and not the IRA.
He has issued so many such denials over the years that repeating them would have been a cakewalk for Adams in the witness box.
But still, surely inwardly, he bridled at the manner in which former minister of justice and attorney general Michael McDowell dealt with these denials when called to give evidence on behalf of the BBC.
In cross-examination John Kerr, a barrister for Adams, put it to McDowell that he made no secret of his hatred of Sinn Féin.
'Hatred is one way of putting it,' McDowell said in agreement.
McDowell allowed that Adams played a 'central role' in achieving the 1998 Belfast Agreement, as did others, but said that he 'represented himself entirely falsely in my view as a go-between between the IRA and the political process, whereas in fact he was the dominant character in the IRA at that time'.
McDowell couldn't resist another dig in granting Adams 'the credit of common sense' of recognising that the IRA had been defeated. That would have irked Adams who holds to the line the IRA was never defeated. Now, Adams will likely feel, following that joust with McDowell, that he who laughs last laughs longest.
A damaging blow for the BBC
BBC Spotlight reporter Jennifer O'Leary speaking to the media after the High Court found the broacaster defamed Gerry Adams. Photograph: Collins Courts
The BBC, and its flagship investigative programme Spotlight have been hit a damaging blow and will have a lot to consider this weekend. Adams has succeeded, as he said during the trial, in 'putting manners' on them.
Spotlight reporter Jennifer O'Leary pursued the story when contacts told her the IRA had murdered Donaldson and 'let dissidents make the claim of responsibility', with Adams allegedly sanctioning the murder that was carried out near Glenties in Co Donegal in 2006.
It wasn't until 2009 that the Real IRA said it was responsible for the killing of Donaldson who – while secretly working for MI5, the RUC and later the Police Service of Northern Ireland - ran the Sinn Féin office at Stormont where he worked shoulder to shoulder with Adams and Martin McGuinness.
It is worth mentioning that the judge decided against permitting evidence from three witnesses the BBC wanted to put forward to assist its case. One of them was Jane Donaldson, daughter of Denis Donaldson.
In the absence of the jury, she said that the family had an 'open mind' on who killed her father and did not believe the claim by the Real IRA that it was responsible. She said that 'bogus claim of responsibility' by a single Real IRA source in 2009 three years after the killing lacked all credibility.
The detail in the admission 'didn't correlate with an awful lot of the sensitive and confidential information we'd gathered from the gardaí', she said.
The judge, however, found that this evidence wasn't 'terribly relevant' to the issues to be decided by the jury so she did not get to make these points with the jury present in the courtroom.
Personality always has served Adams well, as has his sense of humour. For some during the bloody years of the Troubles, he and the late McGuinness, another leader who disavowed much of his IRA past, were characterised as romanticised Fidel Castro- and Che Guevara-type figures.
Adams's courtroom tactics that triggered laughter
Since handing over the leadership to Mary Lou McDonald, Adams has morphed into more of an avuncular sometimes whimsical person but also a grand venerable of the republican movement. In court that was how he was portrayed and how he portrayed himself.
The BBC lawyers, in playing to the IRA leadership allegation, also referred to Adams in the early 1970s shouldering the coffin of an old republican while wearing the black beret associated with IRA membership.
Adams said he did not recognise this as 'effectively' the IRA's uniform, as it was put to him. He then reflected that from the picture he looked like the ineffectual Frank Spencer character in the old TV comedy Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. That triggered laughter in court.
Adams deployed the same tactic when asked about the Disney series Say Nothing by New Yorker journalist Patrick Radden Keefe. No, he hadn't seen it.
[
Say Nothing: Bingeable yet sober-minded eulogy for the tragedy of the Troubles
Opens in new window
]
'Life's too short to watch Disney, especially when it is dealing with serious issues,' he replied.
That too seemed to go down well with some members of the jury.
It also may have deflected them from the serious allegation in Say Nothing that he was a pivotal figure in the decision to abduct, murder and secretly bury or disappear Jean McConville, the widowed mother of 10 children, an allegation that he has always rejected.
[
Family of Jean McConville criticise 'hurtful' Disney+ dramatisation
Opens in new window
]
His gentle canter through his life story at the outset of the hearing also allowed him to play to his theatrical strengths.
He seemed to impress the jury with the stories of discrimination, Ian Paisley, the civil rights movement, the actions of the B-Specials, and so on.
Here too he could present himself as just a regular-type guy whose 'biggest ambition was to win an All-Ireland with the Antrim hurling team'.
Former US congressman Bruce Morrison gave evidence for Adams via video link from near Washington, DC, describing him as an 'elder statesman' and a 'serious man on a serious mission' to achieve peace.
Singer and friend Christy Moore spent a couple of hours in the court on one of the days and took time to chat with him outside the court, which allowed photographers grab some useful pictures.
'Peacemaker' or 'peacetaker'?
The BBC, as well as McDowell, offered their own witnesses with a different take on the life and times of Adams.
Ann Travers, whose sister was shot dead and her father seriously wounded by the IRA, as they were leaving Mass in south Belfast in 1984 described Adams as a 'warmonger' who was 'heavily involved' in the murder of innocent people.
Adams, she said, had 'cast a long and dark shadow' over her life. She 'would even have a fear of him', she added.
Former Ireland rugby international and solicitor Trevor Ringland said Adams had a reputation as a 'peacetaker' rather than a 'peacemaker'.
In the end, the 'peacemaker' argument took precedence with the jury, it seems.
There are many who will have different views, but that will hardly bother Adams this weekend. The stakes were huge and he carried the day.
The jury's verdict will boost his legacy and his vanity. A win is a win is a win.
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CCTV video later showed her and Mr O'Brien entering the hotel, just before midnight, taking the elevator and walking towards room 610. Other video footage showed Mr Crosbie walking to a lobby area on the sixth floor, adjust the chair and scroll through his phone for the next two hours. Terence Crosbie. Photograph: X The woman said she didn't know Mr O'Brien had a roommate. CCTV video and hotel records later supported Mr Crosbie's testimony that they met briefly at the bar and he was briefly in the room when the woman and Mr O'Brien first arrived, and that he 'read between the lines' and quickly left the room. She testified that after having sex with Mr O'Brien she went to the bathroom and left the light on. When she returned Mr O'Brien was already asleep and taking up the majority of the bed, so she got into the other bed and fell asleep, intending to leave and work from home the next day. She told the court she 'woke up to somebody on top of me' raping her, she told the court, in tears. 'This person was taller than Liam and was not bald and I could hear Liam snoring,' she said. The woman testified that the man, who prosecutors said was Mr Crosbie, also disparaged Mr O'Brien, while assaulting her, saying that Mr O'Brien 'can't even do this for you – what a loser'. She testified that she could feel his weight on top of her and she told him to 'stop!' But he didn't, the court heard. When she eventually managed to manoeuvre her legs off the side of the bed and break free, and started to collect her clothes, she testified that Mr Crosbie continued to follow her around the hotel room, trying to kiss her. She said she went to the bathroom and that Mr Crosbie tried to get in and 'was jiggling the handle' after she locked the door. Under cross-examination, defence attorney Mr Reilly noted that she initially reported that the assailant was about her height and her testimony did not include details about Mr Crosbie's birthmarks or tattoos. 'I was trying not to look,' she said. The prosecution noted that she texted a friend at 2.18am as she left the hotel. 'I hate everyone,' she wrote. 'What the f*** is wrong with people.' 'I woke up and a guy was inside of me telling me I wanted it and telling me how pathetic it was that his friend couldn't give that,' the court heard. She then walked home, changed and went to hospital, bringing the clothes she wore in the hotel. There she reported the rape. DNA analyst Alexis Decesaris testified that the evidence collected from the woman was 'consistent' with there being 'two individuals' separate from her who were both male. 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'There was nobody in my bed, my bed was empty,' he told the court. He said he brushed clothes off his bed, and crawled under the covers in his boxer shorts. About a minute and a half after he got into bed he testified that he heard someone 'rummaging around the room' and assumed the woman was collecting her things to leave. He disputed the woman's account that he called Mr O'Brien a loser; this was not 'an Irish term' that he would use, he argued. Mr Crosbie claimed he attempted to fly back to Dublin on an early flight home because he was 'scared like a rabbit in the headlights' after being questioned by police. When Mr Crosbie took the stand, prosecutors also played a portion of his interview with police that had been previously redacted in which he told detectives he had masturbated in the hotel room and asked whether his DNA could have got on the complainant that way. A pair of Mr Crosbie's underwear with semen on it was later collected as evidence. In cross-examination, prosecutors pointed out that Mr Crosbie would not have had time to masturbate alone in his room until after the alleged assault. Mr Crosbie's defence team stressed that his story about masturbation was 'hypothetical'. In closing arguments, prosecutor Erin Murphy told jurors that they 'might not agree' with or 'relate' to the complainant's choice to go to the hotel with Mr O'Brien but that it was 'her choice'. 'That doesn't mean that that man's hotel roommate gets to rape her,' she said. Mr Crosbie is not the 'unluckiest man in the world; he is the man who raped [the woman] and he is the man who got caught', she told the jury. Mr Reilly argued that prosecutors had not met their 'high burden' of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. 'I suggest to you there are multiple reasonable doubts in this case,' he said.
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Glastonbury 2025 Live Thursday, BBC One, 10pm The BBC's live coverage of this year's Glasto in Pilton, Sussex, kicks off on Thursday, but all this week the Beeb will be airing programmes in anticipation of the big weekend, beginning with three half-hour specials featuring Glastonbury legends from the 1970s (Monday, BBC Two, 10pm), 1980s (Tuesday, BBC Two, 10pm) and 1990s (Wednesday, BBC Two, 10pm). Clara Amfo and Lauren Laverne will be on hand at Worthy Farm to look forward to the fun in store for the weekend, which will see headline performances on the Pyramid stage by The 1975, Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts and Olivia Rodrigo. If you haven't got tickets for the festival, the BBC's coverage of the onstage action will be almost as good as the real thing – and a lot less mucky. Streaming Countdown From Wednesday, June 25th, Prime Video Countdown: Amber Oliveras and Mark Meachum A dead Homeland Security agent, a secret taskforce and a terror plot that could end in millions of deaths: maybe I won't have another consonant after all, Rachel, thank you very much. Jensen Ackles from The Boys heads the cast of this action-thriller series created by Derek Haas, the mind behind the FBI series and all its variants. Ackles is the LAPD cop Mark Meachum, who is recruited into the taskforce after the Homeland Security guy is murdered in broad daylight. The murder is just the tip of the iceberg, and soon Ackles and the team are racing to stop the bad guys from turning the citizens of LA into DOA. The Bear From Thursday, June 26th, Disney+ The Bear Chef-patron Carmy Berzatto is back in kitchen hell in the fourth series of the foodie dramedy, and he's still in pursuit of excellence in the former sandwich shop in Chicago that he inherited after the suicide of his brother, Michael. Carmy, a Michelin-star chef, has turned the dive into a fine-dining restaurant, but success is far from a done deal. Money is running out, and the kitchen is still in chaos and turmoil. Can Carmy create a calmer atmosphere in this culinary crucible? Jeremy Allen White stars as Carmy, with Ayo Edebiri, Oliver Platt and Jamie Lee Curtis among the cast. Squid Game From Friday, June 27th, Netflix How much of a gaming junkie do you have to be to go back into a game that could end in your death? In series two of the hit Korean series – Netflix's most successful non-English-language series – Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) went back into the game with a clear mission to take down the faceless organisation behind this murderous, macabre theme park, but in this third and final series he finds himself back in the Squid Game dorm after the failure of his attempted rebellion – and this time the games have been taken to even deadlier levels. Gi-hun must survive this last round and also outwit his treacherous adversary the Frontman as the tournament reaches its bloody, adrenaline-pumping climax. Smoke From Friday, June 27th, Apple TV+ The Rocket Man star Taron Egerton heads a strong cast in this new crime series about an arson investigator in pursuit of two serial pyromaniacs. Joining Egerton in the series – based on a true story – are Rafe Spall, Jurnee Smollett, Anna Chlumsky, Greg Kinnear and John Leguizamo. Egerton plays the investigator, with Smollett as the detective who becomes his reluctant partner; they'll have to find common ground if they are going to stop the firestarting spree before it gets completely out of control.
